What is "twin"

Twin \Twin\, v. i. To depart from a place or thing. [Obs.] ``Ere that we farther twin.''
--Chaucer.

Twin \Twin\, a. [OE. twin double, AS. getwinne two and two, pl., twins; akin to D. tweeling a twin, G. zwilling, OHG. zwiniling, Icel. tvennr, tvinnr, two and two, twin, and to AS. twi- two. See Twice, Two.]

1. Being one of two born at a birth; as, a twin brother or sister.

2. Being one of a pair much resembling one another; standing the relation of a twin to something else; -- often followed by to or with.
   --Shak.

3. (Bot.) Double; consisting of two similar and corresponding parts.

4. (Crystallog.) Composed of parts united according to some definite law of twinning. See Twin, n., 4.

   Twin boat, or Twin ship (Naut.), a vessel whose deck and upper works rest on two parallel hulls.

   Twin crystal. See Twin, n., 4.

   Twin flower (Bot.), a delicate evergreen plant ( Linn[ae]a borealis) of northern climates, which has pretty, fragrant, pendulous flowers borne in pairs on a slender stalk.

   Twin-screw steamer, a steam vessel propelled by two screws, one on either side of the plane of the keel.

Twin \Twin\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Twinned; p. pr. & vb. n. Twinning.]

1. To bring forth twins.
   --Tusser.

2. To be born at the same birth.
   --Shak.

Twin \Twin\, n.

1. One of two produced at a birth, especially by an animal that ordinarily brings forth but one at a birth; -- used chiefly in the plural, and applied to the young of beasts as well as to human young.

2. pl. (Astron.) A sign and constellation of the zodiac; Gemini. See Gemini.

3. A person or thing that closely resembles another.

4. (Crystallog.) A compound crystal composed of two or more crystals, or parts of crystals, in reversed position with reference to each other.

   Note: The relative position of the parts of a twin may be explained by supposing one part to be revolved 180[deg] about a certain axis (called the twinning axis), this axis being normal to a plane (called the twinning plane) which is usually one of the fundamental planes of the crystal. This revolution brings the two parts into parallel position, or vice versa. A contact twin is one in which the parts are united by a plane surface, called the composition face, which is usually the same as the twinning plane. A penetration twin is one in which the parts interpenetrate each other, often very irregularly. Twins are also called, according to form, cruciform, geniculated, etc.

Twin \Twin\, v. t.

1. To cause to be twins, or like twins in any way.
   --Shak.

   Still we moved Together, twinned, as horse's ear and eye.
   --Tennyson.

2. To separate into two parts; to part; to divide; hence, to remove; also, to strip; to rob. [Obs.]

   The life out of her body for to twin.
   --Chaucer.

Old English twinn "consisting of two, twofold, double, two-by-two," from Proto-Germanic *twisnjaz "double" (cognates: Old Norse tvinnr "double, twin," Old Danish tvinling, Dutch tweeling, German zwillung), from PIE *dwisno- (cognates: Latin bini "two each," Lithuanian dvynu "twins"), from *dwi- "double," from root *dwo- "two" (see two). Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota have been the Twin Cities since 1883, but the phrase was used earlier of Rock Island and Davenport (1856).

"to combine two things closely, join, couple," late 14c., from twin (adj.). Related: Twinned; twinning. In Middle English, the verb earlier and typically meant "to part, part with, separate from, estrange," etc. (c.1200), on the notion of making two what was one.

c.1300, from Old English getwinn "double;" getwinnas "twins, two born at one birth," from twinn (see twin (adj.)).

n. 1 Either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one who was born at the same birth as a sibling. 2 Either of two similar or closely related objects, entities etc. 3 A room in a hotel, guesthouse, etc. with two beds; a twin room. 4 (context US English) A twin size mattress or a bed designed for such a mattress. 5 A twin crystal. 6 (context modifier English) Forming a pair of twins. 7 (context modifier English) Forming a matched pair. vb. 1 (context transitive obsolete outside Scotland English) To separate, divide. 2 (context intransitive obsolete outside Scotland English) To split, part; to go away, depart. 3 (context usually in the passive English) To join, unite; to form links between (now especially of two places in different countries). 4 (context intransitive English) To give birth to twins. 5 (context intransitive obsolete English) To be born at the same birth.

1. adj. being two identical [syn: duplicate, matching, twin(a), twinned]

2. very similar [syn: siamese]

3. [also: twinning, twinned]

1. v. duplicate or match; "The polished surface twinned his face and chest in reverse" [syn: duplicate, parallel]

2. bring two objects, ideas, or people together; "This fact is coupled to the other one"; "Matchmaker, can you match my daughter with a nice young man?"; "The student was paired with a partner for collaboration on the project" [syn: match, mate, couple, pair]

3. grow as twins; "twin crystals"

4. give birth to twins

5. [also: twinning, twinned]

1. n. either of two offspring born at the same time from the same pregnancy

2. (astrology) a person who is born while the sun in in Gemini [syn: Gemini]

3. a waterfall in the Snake River in southern Idaho [syn: Twin Falls]

4. a duplicate copy [syn: counterpart, similitude]

5. [also: twinning, twinned]

Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy. Twins can be either monozygotic ("identical"), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic ("fraternal"), meaning that they develop from two different eggs. In fraternal twins, each twin is fertilized by its own sperm cell.

In contrast, a fetus that develops alone in the womb is called a singleton, and the general term for one offspring of a multiple birth is multiple.

A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy.

Twin may also refer to:

• Twin, Alabama, a city in the United States
• Twin, Belgium, Walloon name of the Belgium city of Thuin
• Twin (production team), a Swedish record production and songwriting team
• Twin (windowing system), a windowing environment for text mode displays
• Willows TWIN, a Windows emulator
• Twin, a member of the Minnesota Twins baseball team
• Flat-twin engine
• V-twin engine
• Straight-two engine, also referred to as a parallel-twin
• Crystal twin, a crystal sample with two domains containing a twin boundary
• Twin house, semi-detached housing
• Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning
• Gemini Twin, an American two-seat powered parachute design
• Air Creation Twin, a French two seat ultralight trike design

Twin (sometimes written as TWIN) is a Swedish record production and songwriting team, consisting of Niclas Molinder and Joacim Persson, who are working in the genres of pop, R&B and rock.

Twin ( acronym for "Textmode WINdow") is a windowing environment with mouse support, window manager, terminal emulator and networked clients, all inside a text mode display.

Twin supports a variety of displays:

• plain text computer terminals (any termcap/ ncurses compatible terminal, the virtual console, Twin's own terminal emulator);
• X11, where it can be used as a multi-window Xterm;
• itself (it is possible to display a Twin on, or "inside", another Twin);
• twdisplay, a general network-transparent display client, used to attach/detach more displays "on the fly".

Twin is tested on Linux ( x86, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, SPARC) and on FreeBSD; porting to SunOS is in progress.

1. redirect Application Programming Interface for Windows#TWIN