twit

1 of 2

noun

1
: a silly annoying person : fool
2
: an act of twitting : taunt

twit

2 of 2

verb

twitted; twitting

transitive verb

1
: to subject to light ridicule or reproach : rally
2
: to make fun of as a fault

Examples of twit in a Sentence

Noun Only a complete twit would insult his hosts.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Noun
Unforgiven recasts the genre as a pitiless, almost pathologically unromantic realm populated by twits hoping to make their name and aged gunslingers who have to make peace with their bad pasts. Will Leitch, Vulture, 11 Mar. 2024 Jane Austen wrote takedowns of this kind of ninny two centuries ago — how fun to see Pike update her twit to the post-Y2K era. Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 7 Mar. 2024 Democrats think Republicans are knuckle-dragging idiots, and Republicans think Democrats are know-it-all twits. Cameron Smith | Csmith@al.com, al, 1 Aug. 2023 Inadvertently, unconsciously, and probably unwillingly the FCA has produced a document that can be very useful to Republican politicians who are in a twit about ESG investing. Robert G. Eccles, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2023 Twitter has squeezed several executives and trust and safety advisors out, and the billionaire chief twit is about ready to give up his pole position, too. Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 4 Jan. 2023 Now the new owner, who has now changed his bio from chief twit to Twitter complaint hotline operator, said hitting up verified accounts was a vital prerequisite to improving the platform’s experience for all 238 million daily active users. Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 1 Nov. 2022 And making Gracie a useless twit who gets everyone else into trouble seems like a cop-out, unfair to the character and insulting to audiences. Erik Kain, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2021 Unfortunately, even Lemann’s abbreviated portrait of Hoffman as visionary thinker and mover-and-shaker reveals him to be just another of Silicon Valley’s insular, arrogant, faux-populist twits. Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post, 31 Oct. 2019
Verb
Nosy birds twit and tweet from their leafy vantage points. Variety, The Mercury News, 5 June 2019

Word History

Etymology

Verb

Middle English atwiten to reproach, from Old English ætwītan, from æt at + wītan to reproach; akin to Old High German wīzan to punish, Old English witan to know

First Known Use

Noun

1528, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Verb

1530, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of twit was in 1528

Cite this Entry

“Twit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twit. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on twit

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!