What is "twist"

Twist \Twist\, n.

1. The act of twisting; a contortion; a flexure; a convolution; a bending.

   Not the least turn or twist in the fibers of any one animal which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture.
   --Addison.

2. The form given in twisting.

   [He] shrunk at first sight of it; he found fault with the length, the thickness, and the twist.
   --Arbuthnot.

3. That which is formed by twisting, convoluting, or uniting parts. Specifically:

   1. A cord, thread, or anything flexible, formed by winding strands or separate things round each other.

   2. A kind of closely twisted, strong sewing silk, used by tailors, saddlers, and the like.

   3. A kind of cotton yarn, of several varieties.

   4. A roll of twisted dough, baked.

   5. A little twisted roll of tobacco.

   6. (Weaving) One of the threads of a warp, -- usually more tightly twisted than the filling.

   7. (Firearms) A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together; as, Damascus twist.

   8. (Firearms & Ord.) The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.

   9. A beverage made of brandy and gin. [Slang]

4. [OE.; -- so called as being a two-forked branch. See Twist, v. t.] A twig. [Obs.]
   --Chaucer. Fairfax.

5. Act of imparting a turning or twisting motion, as to a pitched ball; also, the motion thus imparted; as, the twist of a billiard ball.

6. A strong individual tendency, or bent; a marked inclination; a bias; -- often implying a peculiar or unusual tendency; as, a twist toward fanaticism.

   Gain twist, or Gaining twist (Firearms), twist of which the pitch is less, and the inclination greater, at the muzzle than at the breech.

   Twist drill, a drill the body of which is twisted like that of an auger. See Illust. of Drill.

   Uniform twist (Firearms), a twist of which the spiral course has an equal pitch throughout.

Twist \Twist\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Twisted; p. pr. & vb. n. Twisting.] [OE. twisten, AS. twist a rope, as made of two (twisted) strands, fr. twi- two; akin to D. twist a quarrel, dissension, G. zwist, Dan. & Sw. tvist, Icel. twistr the deuce in cards, tvistr distressed. See Twice, Two.]

1. To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.

   Twist it into a serpentine form.
   --Pope.

2. Hence, to turn from the true form or meaning; to pervert; as, to twist a passage cited from an author.

3. To distort, as a solid body, by turning one part relatively to another about an axis passing through both; to subject to torsion; as, to twist a shaft.

4. To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts. ``Longing to twist bays with that ivy.''
   --Waller.

   There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
   --T. Burnet.

5. To wind into; to insinuate; -- used reflexively; as, avarice twists itself into all human concerns.

6. To unite by winding one thread, strand, or other flexible substance, round another; to form by convolution, or winding separate things round each other; as, to twist yarn or thread.
   --Shak.

7. Hence, to form as if by winding one part around another; to wreathe; to make up.

   Was it not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
   --Shak.

8. To form into a thread from many fine filaments; as, to twist wool or cotton.

Twist \Twist\, v. i.

1. To be contorted; to writhe; to be distorted by torsion; to be united by winding round each other; to be or become twisted; as, some strands will twist more easily than others.

2. To follow a helical or spiral course; to be in the form of a helix.

c.1200 (implied in past tense form twaste), "to wring," from twist (n.). Sense of "to spin two or more strands of yarn into thread" is attested from late 15c. Meaning "to move in a winding fashion" is recorded from 1630s. To twist the lion's tail was U.S. slang (1895) for "to provoke British feeling" (the lion being the symbol of Britain). To twist (someone's) arm in the figurative sense of "pressure (to do something)" is from 1945. Related: Twisted; twisting.

mid-14c., "flat part of a hinge" (now obsolete), probably from Old English -twist "divided object; fork; rope" (as in mæsttwist "mast rope, stay;" candeltwist "wick"), from Proto-Germanic *twis-, from PIE root *dwo- (see two). Original senses suggest "dividing in two" (cognates: cognate Old Norse tvistra "to divide, separate," Gothic twis- "in two, asunder," Dutch twist, German zwist "quarrel, discord," though these senses have no equivalent in English), but later ones are of "combining two into one," hence the original sense of the word may be "rope made of two strands."\n

\nMeaning "thread or cord composed of two or more fibers" is recorded from 1550s. Meaning "act or action of turning on an axis" is attested from 1570s. Sense of "beverage consisting of two or more liquors" is first attested c.1700. Meaning "thick cord of tobacco" is from 1791. Meaning "curled piece of lemon, etc., used to flavor a drink" is recorded from 1958. Sense of "unexpected plot development" is from 1941.\n

\nThe popular rock 'n' roll dance craze is from 1961, so called from the motion involved, but twist was used to describe popular dances in 1894 and again in the 1920s. To get one's knickers in a twist "be unduly agitated" is British slang first attested 1971.

n. 1 A twisting force. 2 Anything twisted, or the act of twisting. 3 The form given in twisting. 4 The degree of stress or strain when twisted. 5 A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together. 6 A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc. 7 A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc. vb. 1 To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force. 2 To join together by twining one part around another. 3 To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve. 4 To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts. 5 (context reflexive English) To wind into; to insinuate. 6 To turn a knob etc. 7 To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating. 8 To form a '''twist''' (in any of the above noun meanings). 9 To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction. 10 (context intransitive of a path English) To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.

1. n. an unforeseen development; "events suddenly took an awkward turn" [syn: turn, turn of events]

2. an interpretation of a text or action; "they put an unsympathetic construction on his conduct" [syn: construction]

3. any clever (deceptive) maneuver; "he would stoop to any device to win a point" [syn: device, gimmick]

4. the act of rotating rapidly; "he gave the crank a spin"; "it broke off after much twisting" [syn: spin, twirl, twisting, whirl]

5. a sharp strain on muscles or ligaments; "the wrench to his knee occurred as he fell"; "he was sidelined with a hamstring pull" [syn: wrench, pull]

6. a sharp bend in a line produced when a line having a loop is pulled tight [syn: kink, twirl]

7. a miniature whirlpool or whirlwind resulting when the current of a fluid doubles back on itself [syn: eddy]

8. a jerky pulling movement [syn: wrench]

9. a hairdo formed by braiding or twisting the hair [syn: braid, plait, tress]

10. social dancing in which couples vigorously twist their hips and arms in time to the music; was popular in the 1960s; "they liked to dance the twist"

11. the act of winding or twisting; "he put the key in the old clock and gave it a good wind" [syn: wind, winding]

12. turning or twisting around (in place); "with a quick twist of his head he surveyed the room" [syn: turn]

13. v. to move in a twisting or contorted motion, (especially when struggling); "The prisoner writhed in discomfort"; "The child tried to wriggle free from his aunt's embrace" [syn: writhe, wrestle, wriggle, worm, squirm]

14. cause (a plastic object) to assume a crooked or angular form; "bend the rod"; "twist the dough into a braid"; "the strong man could turn an iron bar" [syn: flex, bend, deform, turn] [ant: unbend]

15. turn in the opposite direction; "twist a wire"

16. form into a spiral shape; "The cord is all twisted" [syn: twine, distort] [ant: untwist]

17. form into twists; "Twist the bacon around the sausage"

18. do the twist

19. twist or pull violently or suddenly, especially so as to remove (something) from that to which it is attached or from where it originates; "wrench a window off its hinges"; "wrench oneself free from somebody's grip"; "a deep sigh was wrenched from his chest" [syn: wrench]

20. practice sophistry; change the meaning of or be vague about in order to mislead or deceive [syn: twist around, pervert, convolute, sophisticate]

21. twist suddenly so as to sprain; "wrench one's ankle"; "The wrestler twisted his shoulder"; "the hikers sprained their ankles when they fell"; "I turned my ankle and couldn't walk for several days" [syn: sprain, wrench, turn, wrick, rick]

Twist may refer to:

Twist (1994) is the third solo album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Dave Dobbyn, his first recorded in New Zealand after almost a decade living overseas. It was produced by Neil Finn. The album was released in the United States with a slightly altered track listing, and some tracks replaced by songs from his previous album. First single " Language" reached number four on the New Zealand charts.

Twist is a 2003 Canadian drama film and a retelling of Charles Dickens' classic, Oliver Twist.

The Twist or Twister is an amusement ride in which suspended riders spinning in cars experience centrifugal force, while spinning along two separate axes. Riders are seated in small carriages clustered together and connected by beams at the top to a central point. The clustered vehicles are spun in one direction, while the ride as a whole spins in the opposite direction.

Twist is poker jargon for a round with specific rules which is sometimes used in the poker variant stud poker.

One can replace any round of (or add a round to) a stud poker game with a twist round, in which each player is offered the option to replace exactly one card in his hand with a new one from the remaining deck stub. This is similar to the draw phase of draw poker, differing in the following way: if the player chooses to replace a downcard, he discards it and is dealt a replacement card also face down; if he wishes to replace an upcard, he discards it and receives the replacement face up. On a twist round, players make the decision of which card to replace in turn starting with the player who bet first on the preceding round (usually the player whose upcards make the best hand), discarding the card they choose to replace, if any. After everyone has made their decision, the replacement cards are dealt starting at the dealer's left as usual.

Sometimes replacement cards are "bought" by requiring a player to add a fixed amount to the pot to be able to get a replacement.

Category:Poker gameplay and terminology Category:Stud poker

Twist were a rock band from Birmingham, England, consisting of Emma Fox (vocals/guitar), Vanessa White (guitar), Kelly Southern (Bass) and Leanne Taylor (drums). They released their debut record, "Magenta" on the Fierce Panda record label in February 2000, and played support slots for Muse and Coldplay. The band broke up in 2002.

Twist is a test automation and functional testing solution built by Thoughtworks Studios, the software division of ThoughtWorks. It uses Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Test-driven development (TDD) for functional testing of the application. It is a part of the Adaptive ALM solution consisting of Twist for Agile testing by ThoughtWorks Studios, Mingle for Agile project management and Go for Agile release management.

Twist is no longer supported by ThoughtWorks.

Twist is a 2013 crime novel, with elements of political thriller, written by Basque writer Harkaitz Cano. Set in the 1980s, the protagonist, Diego Lazkano, who works as an interpreter, has two best friends, Zeberio and Soto. They are arrested, tortured and ultimately murdered by a Spanish Civil Guard. The murder of his friends changes everything in Lazkano's life. The novel deals with the avenging of Lazkano's friends, and his relationship with a girl named Gloria.

The twist is a dance that was inspired by rock and roll music. From 1959 to the early sixties it became the first worldwide dance craze, enjoying immense popularity among all people and drawing fire from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken, but none were as popular.

Having seen teenagers in Tampa, Florida doing the dance, Hank Ballard wrote " The Twist" and released it as the B-side of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters' 1959 single "Teardrops on Your Letter". Dick Clark, having noticed the dance becoming popular among teenagers, recommended to Cameo Records that the more wholesome Chubby Checker rerecord the song, which was released in 1959 and became a number one hit in 1960. The dance became passe among teenagers as it became acceptable among adults and the song was released, becoming a number one hit again in 1962.

A world record was set in DeLand, Florida, on October 11, 2012, when Chubby Checker sang the song live and the crowd danced. An estimated 4,000 people twisted along with Checker, surpassing the previous Guinness World Record for most people twisting in the streets at once.

"Twist" is an electronic– dance song written by British duo Goldfrapp for their second album Black Cherry (2003). It was produced by Goldfrapp, and received a positive reception from music critics. The song was released as the third single in the winter of 2003 (see 2003 in music) and was a minor hit in the United Kingdom, charting just outside the top thirty in the UK Singles Chart. In the United States the song was a hit on the Billboard Dance Sales chart, reaching number eighteen.

In an interview with New Beats, Alison Goldfrapp described the genesis of the song:

It's a sort of sexual fantasy that I had about a boy who worked at the fairground, who I lusted after. He was in control and I wasn't cause I was sat on the waltzer and he was the one that was spinning it around and--I don't know--it's sort of lust, adolescent, awakening, smells and noise and dirt. That's what "Twist" is about.

Twist is a bite-sized confectionery produced by Freia (owned by Mondelez), primarily for the Scandinavian market. Twist is sold in bags, and each bag contains a variety of pieces, mostly consisting of chocolates with some sort of filling in the center. New pieces are added and old ones discontinued frequently. Only two pieces, Lakris (licorice) and Cocos (coconut-filled chocolate), have existed since the product was launched. The name Twist refers to the way each piece is wrapped.

Twist quickly became popular when it was introduced in Norway in 1957. It was introduced in the other Nordic countries soon thereafter; Sweden in 1958, Denmark in 1963, and Finland in 1964. However, the product is still most popular in its home market: Norwegians consume three times as much Twist as Swedes.

In the mid 1990s, the production of Twist was moved from Freia's factory in Oslo to its sister company Marabou in Sweden.

The Lickorish twist theorem is a mathematical theorem devised by W. B. R. Lickorish.

Twist is a comedy stage thriller by Miles Tredinnick. Originally written in 1990, it was first produced in 1995 at the Pentameters Theatre in London under the title Getting Away with Murder. Twist has a cast of three men and three women.

The play is a parody of the traditional theatrical thriller, in which nobody is what they seem and nothing is what it should be. David Woods is an accountant who sees a way of making a fortune by writing a kiss-and-tell biography about his famous actress wife Sarah. He then realises that his book will do even better if she is murdered first.

A German version entitled Der Letzte Dreh, translated by Ursula Grutzmacher-Tabori, is available and, in 2008, Matador Books published a UK acting edition. Twist was also published as a Kindle Edition in 2011. The play had its US debut in Taunton, Massachusetts in 2010.

Twist is the thirteenth novel by Swedish author Klas Östergren. It was published in 2014.

Twist is an online teen-focused website and was a monthly print teen magazine. The website is owned by, and the print magazine was published, by Bauer Publishing, the United States division of the German firm Bauer Verlagsgruppe. The first issue was released in 1997.

Bauer Media announced in November 2015 that the print edition of Twist magazine would end with the early 2016 issues, but that it would continue as an online-only venture.

The magazine's headquarters is in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Like the majority of teenage magazines, it contains common features including teen gossip, quizzes, fashion, popular celebrity couples, posters and more with celebrities of interest to the readers. Betsy Fast served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine.

A twist is a piece of citrus zest used as a cocktail garnish, generally for decoration and to add flavor when added to a mixed drink.

There are a variety of ways of making and using twists. Twists are typically cut from a whole fresh fruit with a small kitchen knife immediately prior to serving, although a peeler, citrus zesters, or other utensil may be used. A curled shape may come from cutting the wedge into a spiral, winding it around a straw or other object, or as a byproduct of the cutting.

The name may refer to the shape of the garnish, which is typically curled or twisted longitudinally, or else to the act of twisting the garnish to release fruit oils that infuse the drink. Other techniques include running the twist along the rim of the glass, and "flaming" the twist.

They are generally about long (although length varies), and thin.

Cocktails featuring a twist include Horse's Neck.

In mathematics ( differential geometry) twist is the rate of rotation of a smooth ribbon around the space curve X = X(s), where s is the arc length of X and U = U(s) a unit vector perpendicular at each point to X. Since the ribbon (X, U) has edges X and Xʹ = X + ɛU the twist (or total twist number) Tw measures the average winding of the curve Xʹ around and along the curve X. According to Love (1944) twist is defined by

$$Tw = \dfrac{1}{2\pi} \int \left( \dfrac{dU}{ds} \times U \right) \cdot \dfrac{dX}{ds} ds \; ,$$

where dX/ds is the unit tangent vector to X. The total twist number Tw can be decomposed (Moffatt & Ricca 1992) into normalized total torsion T ∈ [0, 1) and intrinsic twist N ∈ Z as

$$Tw = \dfrac{1}{2\pi} \int \tau \; ds + \dfrac{\left[ \Theta \right]_X}{2\pi} = T+N \; ,$$

where τ = τ(s) is the torsion of the space curve X, and [Θ] denotes the total rotation angle of U along X. Neither N nor Tw are independent of the ribbon field U. Instead, only the normalized torsion T is an invariant of the curve X (Banchoff & White 1975).

When the ribbon is deformed so as to pass through an inflectional state (i.e. X has a point of inflection) torsion becomes singular, but its singularity is integrable (Moffatt & Ricca 1992) and Tw remains continuous. This behavior has many important consequences for energy considerations in many fields of science.

Together with the writhe Wr of X, twist is a geometric quantity that plays an important role in the application of the Călugăreanu–White–Fuller formula Lk = Wr + Tw in topological fluid dynamics (for its close relation to kinetic and magnetic helicity of a vector field), physical knot theory, and structural complexity analysis.