twig v.2
1. to observe, to watch.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Brave Irishman I ii: Twig his boots. | |
| Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 180: Now, twig him; now mind him: mark how he hawls his muscles about. | |
| Life’s Painter 133: Twig methodist phizzes, with mask sanctimonious / Their rigs prove to judge that their phiz is erroneous. | |
| Sporting Mag. Feb. IX 290/2: Twig, brother Ned, / That fresh-water felllow, so trim. | |
| ‘Song No. 25’ Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: If they twig you, they’ll nail you. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: To Twig. To observe. Twig the cull, he is peery; observe the fellow, he is watching us. | |
| Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 35: They were not slack in quizzing, when he turn’d his back [...] ‘Twig — Twig, his boots and shovel hat!’. | |
| Life in London (1869) 347: View the mots in the Lobby, / Twig Tom, Jerry and Bobby. | |
| ‘Curly Hair’ in (1979) II 287: With a fine head of hair you will but them twig. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 7 n.p.: The proprietor of the house was twigging his motions through the window pains [sic]. | |
| Cockney Adventures 6 Jan. 76: A rare tippit here, Bill – a guinea to a shilling – pipe the tile – twig the mug. | |
| ‘Miss Dolly Trull’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 143: Just twig Miss Dolly at a hop – / She tries to come the graces! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Feb. 2/3: The Great Bell of that town was going to be Birched [...] I shall go and twig the fun. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 61: Twig his gams; stag his mud fakers – there’s a pair of crab spoilers – talk of a foot, why it’s fourteen inches – go bag your nut, you pyare. Puke. Hook it, you gonniff, cross kid – hook it scarper, speel! [...] go and croak your ugly self, you half bred pig! | |
| Paved with Gold 69: ‘Just twig his bunch of fives, Conkey’ (this was said to a gentleman with a peculiar bottle-nose). | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 17 July 3/5: Twig her red ribbons! there goes a flaming faggot! | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: Turmeric is pronounced to be a ‘brick,’ as [...] his range of vision being limited, he can't ‘twig’ all the ingenious devices brought into play. | |
| Melbourne Punch ‘City Police Court’ 3 Oct. 234/1: The Mayor.– Well my flying sawney hunter, I think I twigged you on the scaldrum dodge once, and just before that, you were reported to me as being scammered with some multee kertever flue fakers in a flatty ken. | |
| Carlisle Jrnl 25 Dec. 6/3: As I strolled down Piccadilly, / A scrumptious gal I met / [...] / Her dress was held up high. / Chorus — O did you twig her ankle? | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Sept. n.p.: I ‘twigged’ them [i.e. a gang of pickpockets] ‘ramp’ a pair of opera-glasses from a ‘rep’ and thank that is all that they ‘touched’. | |
| Lays of Ind (1905) 42: [A]nd, ere that the British could twig it, / To hoist the French drapeau upon it, and prig it. | |
| ‘’Arry to the Front!’ Punch 9 Mar. 100/2: Wy, I twigged a stout Stock-Exchange party, bare-headed and smothered in dust. | |
| Squattermania 272: I kept my eyes about, in hopes of twigging her; and one day I see her get out of a hansom cab. | |
| Sporting Times 16 Aug. 5/2: ‘Twig him [...] wonder who he swapped clothes with?’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Apr. 11/1: Not far off now / (This aint bad) / Sits a mug who’s / Too, been had; / Mug, though he’s not / Long in town, / Twigs the signals / And ‘drops down.’. | |
| No. 5 John Street 288: Twig the two little ’uns comin’ up to lam ’im? | |
| ‘Horses’ in Roderick (1972) 702: Some, who ‘twigged the old horse on the quiet’, said that sometimes the other horses would object. | |
| Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 7 Dec. 12/3: ‘I [...] twigged two coves got up as navvies; very pretty fake-up it were’. | |
| ‘War’ Moods of Ginger Mick 25: Jist then a motor car goes glidin’ by / Wiv two fat toffs be’ind two fat cigars; / Mick twigs ’em frum the corner uv ’is eye. | |
| Jack of Jumps (2007) 296: The leaf-rustler would have stood very little chance of twigging her in her rubber-soled boots. |
2. to recognize, to expose.
| Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 6-12 May n.p.: Young Smack from the Pulpit Thundered hell and perdition / Gainst Hicky for Twigging the Reverend Mission. | |
| Abroad and At Home III ii: He twigs me. He knows Dicky here. | |
| Life in the West I 295: If he ‘twigged’ the other’s ‘phiz,’ in the street [...] he made all possible dispatch to evade his sight. | |
| Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 5 Mar. n.p.: Oh lauks! how snug I gulls the greens, vot tips their mugs to twig me. | |
| Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 3/2: He twigs the old gentleman and sings out ‘Hi?’. | |
| Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: What? don’t twig me? Then it is a good get up. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Dundee Courier (Scot.) 18 Feb. 7/5: Ah! But you’d not have twigged me if you had not heard me spinning that ‘coffer’ in the dossing crib just now. | |
| In London’s Heart 5: Alison twigged him, I suppose. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 27: It’s obvious he’s twigged I’m a Scouser. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Glorious Heresies 202: [O]nce he’d fallen for the Demon again, he’d fretted about Ryan twigging it on visits. | |
| Old Scores [ebook] ‘Only a matter of time before one of them girls twigs’. |
3. (also twig to) to understand, to work out.
| ‘Nothing Like Grog’ Collection of Songs I 104: As for me, from the moment I twigg’d it, / The good stuff has so set me agog. | |
| ‘Shufflers’ City of London Collection 7: The forestaller tips the farmer a wink, / The farmer he twigs him — knows he has got chink. | |
| ‘On the Prigging Lay’ (trans. of ‘Un jour à la Croix Rouge’) in (1829) IV 263: ‘Then,’ says Uncle, says he to his blowen, / ‘Dy’e twig these coves, my mot so knowing?’. | |
| ‘Hurrah For An Irishman’s Sprig!’ Cockchafer 20: Adam was an Irish man, / And Eve, as we twig, / Only notice the rig, / She was made from an Irishman’s sprig! | |
| Paul Periwinkle 167: Ay! ay! I see! I twig! | |
| Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 95: Videsne puer? D’ye twig, young ’un. | |
| Ask Mamma 448: ‘I twig,’ replied the Major. | |
| Wild Boys of London I 38/2: ‘Now I’ve done it,’ thought the unfortunate Sam. ‘He’s twigged it.’. | |
| Wagga Wagga Advertiser 23 Oct. 4/2: The scales fell from her eyes, and she twigged that it was her money and not herself they were after. | |
| ‘’Arry on Niggers’ Punch 15 Mar. 113/2: Injuns, Afghans, or Kaffirs, all’s one; for a Black is good only to tan. / Twig the joke? | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Oct. 8/2: Often we’ve watched with the deepest regret / A topper his tanglefoot swig – / He may ‘twig the hops,’ but it’s wiser to bet / That the simpleton soon ‘hops the twig.’. | |
| ‘Squatter, Three Cornstalks, and the Well’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 73: And though the Cornstalks twigged the ruse / Whereby the boss had done them brown. | |
| Mord Em’ly 150: ‘They don’t know about the ’Ome,’ she whispered [...] ‘I twigged that.’. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 20 Oct. 38: At first we thought he must have twigged that we were wearing wigs. | |
| ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ Dubliners (1956) 122: Just go round and find out how they’re getting on. They won’t suspect you. Do you twig? | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 20 Mar. 4/6: Did she twig that he had started a kidnapping business? | |
| Secret Adversary (1955) 139: Then I wonder how they twigged me. | |
| Ulysses 155: Why those plainclothes men are always courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform. | |
| Dames Don’t Care (1960) 21: It is only an hour afterwards [...] that he twigs it is counterfeit. | |
| Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 135: Brenda had never the agile mind to twig that he was whiling the days between times away with her sister. | |
| Apprentices (1970) I iii: Lifts? Oh, we twigged on. We twigged on. We let the girls hitch-hike and we hid in the ditch, then, when the cars stopped, there we came. | |
| Frying-Pan 18: And then one day I suddenly twigged, I thought ‘What is this, what am I doing.’. | |
| Flame : a Life on the Game 37: When he started the chit-chatting I twigged it [...] I’d sussed that he was gay. | |
| Godson 29: ‘The food has got to be the best in Canberra — an no one’s twigged to it yet’. | |
| Powder 3: Nothing could have prepared him for that stunning impact as he twigged who was on the cover. | |
| Untold Stories (2006) 46: Again I did not twig. ‘Why?’. | |
| Intractable [ebook] For me it had taken nearly eleven years to twig. | |
| Killing Pool 70: There’s the chance that, on some submerged, subconscious level, they may twig that they’ve sen my dial somewhere else today. | |
| Consolation 94: ‘He was actually surprised that I’d twigged’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 605: ‘I’m not twigging the English education. Not a jot’. |
4. to catch sight of, to become aware of.
| ‘Pray Remember Jack’ Jovial Songster 84: One day [...] I twigg’d a pinnace fair. | |
| Hamlet Travestie II i: That calumny will twig you, tho’ you act with greatest caution. | |
| Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 11: We twigg’d more than one queerish sort of a turn-out. | |
| Real Life in London I 558: Did you twig how he queered the coves out of seven bob for what was not worth thrums. | |
| N.-Y. Daily Advertiser 24 Sept. 2/3: Bowyer, the officer, [...] kept a sharp look out for the offender Twigging his man, he went up to him. | |
| ‘Taking Off of Prince Albert’s Inexpressibles’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 36: Twigged the ‘Prince’ t’other day with a new pair of trousers on. | |
| It Is Never Too Late to Mend 1 10: If he is an old hand he will twig the officer. | |
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 62/2: Immediately she ‘twigged’ the ‘spark fawney’ on my ‘duke,’ she got ready for action. but it was no use; that cock wouldn’t fight. | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 245: Some feller in the shop twigged my old girl as one he’d seen before. | |
| Robbery Under Arms (1922) 215: He didn’t twig us. | |
| Pink ’Un and Pelican 34: Nice fresh ham-sandwiches, each of which was carefully wrapped — some of us didn’t fail to twig — separately in a postal telegraph-form of the old pattern. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Dec. 40/3: Love to Jerry. Lord, how he did run when he twigged my persuader. | |
| Devil of Dartmoor in Illus. Police News 1 Oct. 12/2: ‘I twigged that check suit at the Rose Inn!’. | |
| The Great Push 26: ‘Thought I twigged yer from the photo of yer phiz in the papers,’ said the man with the snub nose. | |
| Ulysses 478: Our Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he ain’t saying nothing. | |
| ‘Winter Feeding the Herd’ in Me And Gus (1977) 80: I slipped out of my tree and gained a chain before she twigged me. |
In derivatives
aware, ‘on the ball’.
| Queen of the South 156: These Johnny Chinamen is rare coves for a deal, so twiggin. |
In phrases
1. disguised in order to evade arrest.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 256: out of twig: to put yourself out of twig, is to disguise your dress and appearance, to avoid being recognised, on some particular account. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812]. |
2. wearing shabby clothes, reduced to that state through poverty.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 256: out of twig: [...] a man reduced by poverty to wear a shabby dress is said by his acquaintance to be out of twig. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812]. |
3. of a stolen article, altered to make the article unrecognizable.
| Discoveries (1774) 10: I wish we had as much as you and I could put out of Twig or break in sunder [...] Her Husband came in and told us, he had heard of the Tankard, and where it came from, but he would soon put it out of Twig; and said, Betty, go and make a Fire in the Shop, and bring a large Crucible; which she did; and they melted it down before my Face. | |
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 256: out of twig: [...] to put any article out of twig, as a stolen coat, cloak, &c., is to alter it in such a way that it cannot be identified. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812]. |