Twingen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic verb meaning to pinch or to cause a quick, sharp pain to someone or something
2. Used in older English to describe squeezing or nipping something so that it hurts briefly
3. To inflict a sudden stinging pinch, a sense preserved only in old texts and dialect records

Etymology: "Twingen" is an obsolete English verb meaning to pinch or nip painfully, and its history is largely that of a single Old English ancestor. It descends from Old English "twengan," meaning to pinch, squeeze, or torment, which is related to the Old English "twengan" group of verbs and to Middle Dutch "twingen," meaning to force or compel. The sense of compulsion and the sense of squeezing are close cousins: pressing hard on something is a way of forcing it. The word survived in Middle English and was still recorded in dialect and older literary use into the early modern period, though it was never common. Its modern relative "twinge" is a different formation that developed from the same root, and it is the form that stayed in everyday English, meaning a sudden sharp pang of pain. "Twingen" itself dropped out of general use, so it now survives mainly in dictionaries and in the occasional deliberately archaic writing.