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twire

verb, noun — 6 senses

twire

verb

/ˈtwaɪə(ɹ)/

Etymology From Middle English twiren (“to peep out, pry about, twinkle, glance, gleam”), cognate with Middle High German zwieren (“to spy”), Bavarian zwiren, zwieren (“to spy, glance”). Perhaps related to Old English twinclian (“to twinkle”). More at twinkle.

1

To glance shyly or slyly; look askance; make eyes; leer; peer; pry.

  • I saw the wench that twired and twinkled at thee.c. 1619–1623, John Fletcher, “Women Pleas’d”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i:
  • Which maids will twire at 'tween their fingers.c. 1637, Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd:
2

To twinkle; sparkle; wink.

  • When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild'st the even.1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 28”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

twire

noun

Etymology From Middle English twiren (“to peep out, pry about, twinkle, glance, gleam”), cognate with Middle High German zwieren (“to spy”), Bavarian zwiren, zwieren (“to spy, glance”). Perhaps related to Old English twinclian (“to twinkle”). More at twinkle.

1

A sly glance; a leer.

twire

noun

Etymology From Middle English *twir, *twirn, twern, from Old English *twirn, *tweorn (“twine, thread”), from Proto-West Germanic *twiʀn (“thread”), from Proto-Indo-European *duwo- (“two”). Doublet of twine.

1

A twisted filament; a thread.

  • they put the cocons in hot water, and so stirring them about with a kind of rod, the ends of the silk twires of the cocons stick to it1766, John Locke, Observations Upon The Growth And Culture Of Vines And Olives […] :
Derived terms
twire-pipe

twire

verb

Etymology Perhaps from a dialectal form of *twere, from Middle English *tweren, from Old English þweran (“to stir”) (found in compound āþweran (“to agitate, stir”)), from Proto-Germanic *þweraną (“to stir”), from Proto-Indo-European *twer- (“to turn, twirl, swirl, move”). Cognate with Bavarian zweren (“to stir”). Compare twirk, twirl.

1

To twist; twirl.

twire

noun

Etymology Variant of tuyere.

1

Obsolete A pipe through which the blast is delivered to the interior of a blast furnace, or to the fire of a forge; a tuyere.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.