Noun

1. A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.

Verb

1. To perform a twitch; spasm.

   • "Why is it that you twitch whenever I say Faith?" — http://www.mindspring.com/~randyhoward/new_page_6.htm

2. To jerk sharply and briefly.
3. To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
   • 1995, Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:

   "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."

   • 2003, Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe http://books.google.com/books?id=tv-Noj1Fvc0C, ISBN 0802139965, page 52:

   "But the key revelation from twitching that wonderful Iceland Gull on 10 March 1974 wasn't its eroticism. It was the sheer innocence of it."

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time http://books.google.com/books?id=fWLmpqL4EMsC, ISBN 1741145287, page 119:

   "I hadn't seen John since I went to Adelaide to (unsuccessfully) twitch the '87 Northern Shoveler, when I was a skinny, eighteen- year-old kid. "

Usage notes