twig

twig¹ small branch

Etymology

The word for a small branch is inherited from Middle English twig, also twigge,^[5][6] inherited from Old English twigge, a late Northumbrian form,^[7][8][9] related to twig, later also twī.^[7][10] The OED calls the relation between the two Old English forms obscure, and finds that neither matches the usual Continental forms exactly; all of them appear to be variant formations from the stem twi-.^[7][11] Its current summary therefore calls the origin uncertain, perhaps inherited from Germanic.^[7] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Germanic *twīgą and Etymonline *twigga (“a fork”).^[4][12] The cognates include Dutch twijg, Middle Low German twīch, Old High German zwīg and German Zweig.^[7][6][12] Etymonline traces the word to Proto-Indo-European *dwi-ko-, from the root Proto-Indo-European *dwo- (“two”),^[12][13] and Barnhart and Klein compare a Sanskrit adjective meaning "consisting of two",^[11][6] so that the word would first have meant something forked.^[1][6][14] It is thus related to two, twain and twin.^[8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A slender shoot growing from a branch or stem: about 950 in Barnhart,^[11] and the OED's first quotation is from the Lindisfarne Gospels (Mark 11:8), where the northern form twigge glosses the Latin.^[7] Dictionary.com dates the word to before 950.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Later senses extend the idea of a small offshoot.^[7] A figurative use is already recorded in Old English, in the Lindisfarne Gospels at John 15:5,^[7] and Etymonline finds the figurative "offshoot" of vice or sin by the mid-14th century.^[12][5] Chaucer has the word five times.^[15] From about 1440 to 1661 it could mean, collectively, the material for basket-making.^[7] In the 17th century it also stood for a lime-twig, as in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well,^[7] and in the plural for the twigs of a birch rod.^[7] Anatomists applied it to the small branch of a blood vessel or nerve from 1683.^[7][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as a small shoot of a branch, "a switch tough and long".^[16] In Northumberland and Lancashire dialect a twig was a stout walking stick,^[17][7] and it could also be a divining rod.^[7][3] The verb "to beat with a twig", from the noun, appears in the mid-16th century.^[7][8] Weekley cites the slang hop the twig, to run away, from Ebers (1793).^[18] American slang has used the noun for a very thin person since at least 1989.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 950 – a slender shoot from a branch or stem; also figurative.^[11][7]
• mid-14th century – figurative, an offshoot of vice or sin.^[12]
• c. 1440 – collective, the material for basket-making (obsolete by 1661).^[7]
• c. 1550 – verb, to beat with a twig.^[7][8]
• before 1616 – short for lime-twig, in Shakespeare.^[7]
• 1683 – a small branch of a blood vessel or nerve.^[7]
• 1842 – in dialect, a stout stick or a divining rod.^[7]
• 1989 – American campus slang, a very thin person.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, slender shoot or branch of a tree or other woody plant: The sparrow carried a twig up to its nest.^[20][13][3]
2. (anatomy) A tiny branch of a blood vessel or nerve.^[2][20][3]
3. A divining rod.^[3][7]
4. (dialect) A stout walking stick.^[17][7]
5. (US slang) A very thin person.^[19]

Verb

1. (obsolete except in dialect) To beat with a twig or something like one; to switch.^[3][7][8]

Word family

• twiggy
• twigless
• twiglike
• twiggen
• lime-twig

twig² to catch on

Etymology

The verb meaning to catch on is of uncertain origin.^[1][3] It may be borrowed from Irish tuigim (“I understand”),^{[13][14][6][19]} from Old Irish tuicim.^[13][21] Several dictionaries name Scottish Gaelic tuig (“I understand, perceive”) instead or as well.^{[3][22][20][6][21]} Dictionary.com explains the English w as reflecting the glide that follows the velarized Irish t of southern Ireland,^[14] and Green's Dictionary of Slang suggests that the Irish verb was supported by the dialect noun meaning a divining rod.^[19] The OED, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the origin unknown.^[7][9][2] Ayto suggests it may be one with the contemporary verb of this spelling meaning to pull, which he relates to tweak and twitch and a Germanic base Proto-Germanic *twik-,^[1] and Weekley asks whether it is identical with dialect twick, to pinch or nip.^[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

To observe or watch: Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes "Twig his boots" from T. Sheridan's Brave Irishman (1754),^[19] while the OED and Merriam-Webster start with Foote's Mayor of Garret (1764).^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as slang for looking at someone or something, and moved from seeing to understanding, as Hoad's dates also show: "look at, perceive" in the 18th century, "understand" in the 19th.^[9][7] The sense "to catch sight of, recognize" is recorded from 1796,^[7] and thieves' language had "observe" in 1811: the Lexicon Balatronicum gives "Twig the cull, he is peery".^[19] The figurative "to understand, comprehend" follows in 1815,^[7] with the intransitive "to catch on" by 1832, in M. Scott's Tom Cringle's Log.^[7] A noun for a look is recorded in underworld slang from 1865.^[19]

Timeline

• 1754 – to observe, to watch.^[19] The OED and Merriam-Webster date this sense to 1764.^[7][3]
• 1796 – to catch sight of, to recognize.^[7]
• 1815 – to understand, comprehend.^[7]
• 1832 – intransitive, to catch on.^[7]
• 1865 – noun, a look.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (chiefly British, informal) To understand or realize something at last; to catch on: It took me an hour to twig what she meant.^{[20][2][3][7]}
2. (slang) To notice, observe or watch: He looked round but never twigged us.^[3][8][7]