twine

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English twine, also twin,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English twīn (“double thread; linen”), early also twigin,^[5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *twiznaz (“double thread, twisted thread”),^[4][8][9] ultimately from the stem of twi-,^[5][10][8] from Proto-Indo-European *dwo- (“two”).^[4][11] It is cognate with Dutch twijn, Middle Low German twern, Middle High German zwirn, German Zwirn and Old Norse tvinni.^[5][2][8] Barnhart traces the Germanic form to Proto-Indo-European *dwisno-, the source of Latin bīnī (“two by two”),^[8][12] which Klein cites under bīnus (“double”).^[3] The verb is inherited from Middle English twīnen, formed from the noun,^{[13][2][6][3][8]} and Etymonline adds probable influence from Old Norse tvinna (“to double”),^[4] which the Middle English Dictionary compares for the verb's forms with “-nn-”.^[13] The OED compares Dutch twijnen and German zwirnen.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Thread of two or more strands twisted together: the OED's first record is the Old English Corpus Glossary,^[5] and Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 700.^[8] Old English glosses use it for linen, rendering Latin byssum.^[7][6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the first use to before the 12th century,^[2] and Dictionary.com to before 900.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The sense "linen" gave way in Middle English to thread in general, as in Layamon's a twines þræd.^[7][8] The word then spread to anything twisted like thread: figurative uses from 1557,^[5] the trailing stem of a plant from 1579, a fold or coil from 1600,^[5] and an embrace from 1602,^[5] the "amorous" clasp that Etymonline notes from about 1600.^[4] Johnson (1755) listed a twisted thread, a twist or convolution, and an embrace.^[15] The modern noun narrowed again to strong string of hemp or cotton, and Etymonline says that this use of it as a general coarse cord is commoner in the United States than in Britain.^[5][4] The verb began with the spinner's craft, making strands into thread, and moved out to weaving and wreathing (1612), to wrapping one thing around another (about 1585), and, chiefly of plants, to winding around a support (about 1400).^[5][4] In Australian prison slang of the 19th century twine meant to trick or deceive, perhaps from the standard word, and a 1967 glossary has the noun for a confidence trick.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 700 – Old English twīn, a double or twisted thread.^[8]
• c. 1300 – verb, to twist strands together into thread, in Layamon's Brut.^[5][4] Barnhart dates the text to probably before 1200.^[8]
• c. 1400 – intransitive, to wind or twist, mostly of a plant.^[5]
• 1430–40 – the verb used figuratively, in Lydgate's Fall of Princes.^[5]
• 1557 – the noun in transferred and figurative uses.^[5]
• 1579 – a twining or trailing stem, in Spenser.^[5]
• c. 1585 – to make one thing encircle or clasp another.^[5]
• 1600 – a fold, coil or convolution.^[5]
• 1602 – an embrace.^[5]
• 1612 – to form by interlacing; to weave or wreathe, in Drayton.^[5]
• 1865 – a tangle or knot, figuratively.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Strong string made of two or more strands of hemp, cotton or other fibre twisted together: a ball of garden twine.^[2][17][5]
2. Something twined or twisted, such as the stem of a climbing plant, or a coil or convolution.^[2][17][5]
3. A tangle or knot.^[2][17][5]
4. The act of twining, interlacing or embracing.^[2][17]

Verb

1. To twist strands together, or to make something by twisting them; to braid or weave: The children twined daisies into a crown.^[2][17][5]
2. To wrap or clasp one thing around another, or to encircle one thing with another.^[2][5]
3. Of a plant or the like, to wind in spirals around something: Bindweed twined up the fence post.^[17][2][5]
4. (dialect) To twist or wrench.^[2][5]

Word family

• twiner
• twiny
• twineable
• intwine
• retwine
• untwine
• entwine
• intertwine

Related words

• two
• twin
• twain

Usage notes

Scots also has a verb twine meaning to separate or part, recorded from 1621 in the OED (1722 in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary): it is a later form of twin, probably from a misreading of ambiguous spellings under the influence of the verb meaning "to twist".^[5][6][18] In northern English dialect a further twine, recorded from 1805, means to whine or fret, and may be an alteration of whine.^[5][19]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)