twig

«twig» in Mova's school dictionary: A small, thin branch of a tree or bush — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a twig, twigs); verb (twig, twigs, twigged, twigging — UK informal)

meaning for a pupil

1) A small, thin branch of a tree or bush. tree →

2) (UK, informal verb) To suddenly understand something or realise what is going on. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science and nature lessons: parts of a tree (trunk, branch, twig, leaf), birds' nests made of twigs, kindling for a fire. In stories, a snapping twig warns that someone is coming. Informally, «I finally twigged» means «I finally understood».

examples

• The bird built its nest from twigs and moss. tree →
• A twig snapped under his foot in the dark wood. tree →
• We collected dry twigs to start the campfire. tree →
• The stick insect looked just like a twig. tree →
• It took me ages to twig that she was joking. tree →
• Did you twig who sent the card? tree →
• Count the twigs: there are 4 on each branch and 3 branches, so 12 twigs. tree →
• From every twig glistened a white radiance. tree →

note

Countable: a twig, two twigs. The verb doubles the g: twigged, twigging. A twig is smaller than a branch; a stick is a twig or branch that has fallen off. «Twig» meaning understand is informal, mainly British.

In the corpora

• Wild chimpanzees make tools: they fish for termites with stripped twigs, crack nuts with stones and use leaves as sponges.
• Goats prefer leaves, twigs and shrubs to grass, and in Morocco some goats climb argan trees to eat the fruit.
• A stick insect sways like a twig in the wind and drops to the floor stiff as a stick when touched.
• A cut horse chestnut twig kept in water indoors opens its buds early.
• Elk are good swimmers and eat water plants as well as twigs.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «twig» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.