(v. t.) To touch lightly, or play with; to tweedle; to twirl; as, to twiddle one's thumbs; to twiddle a watch key.
(v. i.) To play with anything; hence, to be busy about trifles.
(n.) A slight twist with the fingers.
(n.) A pimple.
Example Sentences:
(1) Starved cells suspended in a potassium-free medium respond to the addition of valinomycin by a brief period of vigorous twiddling.
(2) Valinomycin-induced twiddling occurs in the absence of external alkali or alkaline earth cations and without significant net synthesis of ATP.
(3) Sue Vertue, executive producer for programme-maker, Hartswood Films, said: “It’s taken a little while to get the dates sorted as none of the boys are exactly sitting back twiddling their thumbs but there was unanimous goodwill to make this work so we’re thrilled that 221B is going to be inhabited again.” The filming schedules of the drama’s two leads, who have become big screen stars since the drama first aired on BBC1 in 2010 – Freeman in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit adaptations and Cumberbatch in a variety of films including Star Trek sequel, Into Darkness, has always been seen the principal barrier to future runs of the show.
(4) Lipophilic cations bind to the ion gate controlling the twiddle frequency and thereby cause the cells to swim smoothly.
(5) Benzema, as if inspired, twiddles his way past a defender in the box and opens fire.
(6) That leads to three disasters: it only shunts trust debts to next year; it passes debts this year to hospitals whose surgeons twiddle their thumbs; and waiting lists soar.
(7) He pointedly hands me his menu, which I study while he twiddles his thumbs.
(8) A simple analytical model is proposed to account for the contribution of the twiddle motion to the correlation function.
(9) Daft Punk themselves are in a separate DJ booth twiddling with nobs that surely don't do anything.
(10) As a consequence we are able to extract a parameter beta, which measures the average fraction of twiddling bacteria in the center of the band at a given time.
(11) Reznor walks me into what he calls his "adult playpen of knob-twiddling": a small garage converted into an Aladdin's cave of instruments, mixing desks and synthesizer modules, their lights winking in the dark.
(12) When a furry green puppet eventually emerges, they squeal with delight – although Twiddle the Turtle's message seems to baffle them slightly.
(13) And if you want to read a novel (or, OK, twiddle with your phone) on your commute, you should be demanding better public transit, not self-driving cars.
(14) The whole thing in France took place in French, he couldn't speak French, so he kind of sat in the corner twiddling his thumbs while I was negotiating and trying to buy a player."
(15) He put out the mics and was twiddling the knobs.” The re-mastered Definitely Maybe is out on 19 May.
(16) "If you are not currently able to benefit from the RHI and were waiting on new tariffs then what are you meant to do - keep twiddling your thumbs?"
(17) The cells move steadily along smooth paths (run), jump about briefly with little net displacement (twiddle), and then run in new directions.
(18) They also twiddle, although less vigorously, when the external pH is lowered.
(19) Vilma is a "granger" – a term I coined to describe the "grey anger" of those who won't willingly enter the people farms, who don't want to spend their retirement twiddling thumbs and perennially tapping little white balls into a hole in a patch of cultivated grass.
(20) Similarly, when starved cells are suspended in a potassium-free medium containing both valinomycin and an attractant, many cells initially run rather than twiddle.
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.