Etymology

tweet

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Today it means: The sound of a bird; any short high-pitched sound or whistle. Full definition →

First used since 2007Norwegian Tveit ← German Twiete
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tweet · noun, verb, interjection1

Onomatopoeic of the sound made by a bird. Compare twitter. The social media senses evolved from earlier Twitter update, twit (noun), twitter (verb).

Tweet · proper noun2

  1. German · derived fromTwiete
  2. Norwegian · derived fromTveit
  3. English todayTweet

Americanized spelling of either Norwegian Tveit or North German Twiete.

First known use, by meaning

  • since 2007 An entry posted on the microblogging service Twitter.
  • since 2007 To post an entry to Twitter.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.