What's the difference between squirm and twist?

Squirm


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To twist about briskly with contor/ions like an eel or a worm; to wriggle; to writhe.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The talk coming from senior Tories – at least some of whom have the grace to squirm when questioned on this topic – suggesting that it's all terribly complicated, that it was a long time ago and that even SS members were, in some ways, themselves victims, is uncomfortably close to the kind of prattle we used to hear from those we called Holocaust revisionists.
  • (2) He cut in and provided a pass for Sneijder, whose shot squirmed wide off Rodríguez; he then clipped a ball in that just evaded Sneijder; and soon after that he appealed for another penalty.
  • (3) And yet for all his anti-establishment credentials, Mr Galloway is as practised as any of his New Labour enemies at squirming away from awkward questions.
  • (4) If the thought of eating fermented cabbage makes you squirm, then perhaps you're not ready for it – but plenty of others are.
  • (5) The Spurs were missing simple shots but insidiously squirmed their way back into the game, with James returning to Earth and Leonard in fine shooting form.
  • (6) But it squirms about conceding them to people it does not approve of.
  • (7) [Parkinson's] makes me squirm and it makes my pants ride up so my socks are showing and my shoes fall off and I can't get the food up to my mouth when I want to."
  • (8) President Andrzej Duda and Beata Szydło, the prime minister, take their orders from him and squirm for his approval.
  • (9) He could only squirm in the stands as Robbie Keane lofted the clearest chance of the game into the face of Mark Schwarzer, who also foiled Kuyt and Torres.
  • (10) Bodies squirmed with the embarrassment of eye contact and personal honesty.
  • (11) But the wording was left deliberately ambiguous and before the ink was dry on the statement, senior German officials, being grilled in Brussels by gobsmacked German journalists, were squirming and heavily qualifying the promise to shore up banks directly.
  • (12) In the last photos of her, taken barely 10 minutes before the Russian bombs landed, she shows off a new bracelet and freshly painted nails with glee, then squeezes a kiss from her squirming baby sister.
  • (13) For Cahun was a writer, first and foremost – and no amount of artistic squirming could change that.
  • (14) The Friday afternoon audience for the film of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars was squirming with more anticipation than any audience I’ve seen since the first screening of Endless Love in July 1981.
  • (15) From the rebound, Lennon's shot deflected off Colback, hit the post and squirmed to safety.
  • (16) But corporations, which thrive on their sense of power and control, hate nothing more than having to say sorry unless they are forced to do so because they are squirming on the end of a hook for doing something particularly reprehensible.
  • (17) With five minutes remaining Aleksandar Kolarov took aim from outside the area and hit the attempt straight at Jonathan Bond, only for the ball to squirm under the goalkeeper and into the net.
  • (18) A Russia free-kick from just inside the halfway line lands evades a Spanish defender and land at Pavlychenko's feet about eight yards out, but he squirms his shot just wide.
  • (19) Team Miliband squirms a bit at this, not entirely sure if it might not be so.
  • (20) Branson has even smoked weed with Sam, a revelation that continues to make his son squirm.

Twist


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
  • (v. t.) Hence, to turn from the true form or meaning; to pervert; as, to twist a passage cited from an author.
  • (v. t.) 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.
  • (v. t.) To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
  • (v. t.) To wind into; to insinuate; -- used reflexively; as, avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
  • (v. t.) 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.
  • (v. t.) Hence, to form as if by winding one part around another; to wreathe; to make up.
  • (v. t.) To form into a thread from many fine filaments; as, to twist wool or cotton.
  • (v. i.) 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.
  • (v. i.) To follow a helical or spiral course; to be in the form of a helix.
  • (n.) The act of twisting; a contortion; a flexure; a convolution; a bending.
  • (n.) The form given in twisting.
  • (n.) That which is formed by twisting, convoluting, or uniting parts.
  • (n.) A cord, thread, or anything flexible, formed by winding strands or separate things round each other.
  • (n.) A kind of closely twisted, strong sewing silk, used by tailors, saddlers, and the like.
  • (n.) A kind of cotton yarn, of several varieties.
  • (n.) A roll of twisted dough, baked.
  • (n.) A little twisted roll of tobacco.
  • (n.) One of the threads of a warp, -- usually more tightly twisted than the filling.
  • (n.) A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together; as, Damascus twist.
  • (n.) The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
  • (n.) A beverage made of brandy and gin.
  • (v. t.) A twig.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Aberrant forms (elongated and twisted) in the vacuole and double virions in the plasma membrane were observed as early as 65 h after infection.
  • (2) Electron microscopy shows that at neutral pH, CEA particles consist of homogeneous, morphologically distinctive, twisted rod-shaped particles, about 9 X 40 nm.
  • (3) Rapid swelling of the knee following a blow or twisting injury is considered a significant injury.
  • (4) Intermolecular contacts occur in both oligomers in the minor groove: in the B form through twisted guanine-guanine hydrogen bonding, and in the Z form through base-base stacking and the water network.
  • (5) Ings twisted the knee during his first training session with Klopp in charge and tests have shown the former Burnley forward ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament, meaning that a player who has just broken into England’s senior team will be out for a minimum of six months.
  • (6) Leicester looked a little sorry for themselves and, with their concentration down, United twisted the knife.
  • (7) Gowher Rizvi, chief representative of the prime minister, Sheik Hasina, told the Guardian that preparations for the forthcoming elections, were "completely on track" and that the tribunal, probing crimes committed during the 1971 war in which Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan, was about bringing justice previously denied by "the twists and turns" of the country's history.
  • (8) The base orientations are characterized by a substantial inclination and propellor twist.
  • (9) Among the non-standard postures examined were: twisting while lifting or lowering, lifting and lowering from lying, sitting, kneeling, and squatting positions, and carrying loads under conditions of constricted ceiling heights.
  • (10) A vicious feud playing out within Uzbekistan's ruling family took a new twist on Monday , when prosecutors announced that the clan's most flamboyant member faces charges of involvement in mafia-style corruption.
  • (11) The possible arrangements of molecules within the twisted ribbons have been deduced and are found to be fairly closely related.
  • (12) Idiopathic torsion dystonia (ITD) is characterized by sustained, involuntary muscle contractions, frequently causing twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures.
  • (13) These results indicate that the polypeptide chain, driven by energetics (nonbonded and electrostatic interactions), is folded into a typical left-handed twisted four-helix bundle with an approximately 4-fold symmetric array, as observed in most four alpha-helix proteins.
  • (14) In the mutants twist and snail, which fail to differentiate the ventrally derived mesoderm, mitoses specific to the mesoderm are absent.
  • (15) Fulham were helped by United being forced into a trio of substitutions at the interval, as Rafael succumbed to a twisted ankle, Cleverly had double vision and Evans had back trouble.
  • (16) Blockage of the balloon system was possibly caused by twisting the system to reach and pass the lesion in the branch of left circumflex coronary artery.
  • (17) In the tradition of the American author Patricia Highsmith, creator of the charming psychopath Tom Ripley, Rendell used twisting plots to expose twisted minds.
  • (18) From previous genetic and biochemical studies it was hypothesized that dorsal might be responsible for the activation of the zygotic gene twist.
  • (19) Finally, the twisted nose was treated by freeing the nasal components, straightening the bone and cartilage, and replacing them in their anatomical positions.
  • (20) It doesn’t do a lot at the moment, but there’s a lot of potential for a modern twist on board games here.