Etymology

twitter

twit·ter
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Today it means: The sound of a succession of chirps as uttered by birds. Full definition →

Middle English twitren ← Old English *twiterian ← Proto-West Germanic *twitwiʀōn
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twitter · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*twitwizōną“to chirp; twitter”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*twitwiʀōn
  3. Old English · inherited from*twiterian
  4. Middle English · inherited fromtwitren
  5. English todaytwitter

From Middle English twitren, twiteren, from Old English *twiterian, from Proto-West Germanic *twitwiʀōn, from Proto-Germanic *twitwizōną (“to chirp; twitter”). Cognate with Low German twitteren (“to twitter”), German zwitzern, zwitschern (“to twitter”). Compare also Dutch kwetteren (“to twitter”), Danish kvidre (“to twitter”), Swedish kvittra (“to twitter”), dialectal Swedish tittra (“to twitter”).

twitter · noun2

Origin unknown; possibly related to twine, twist, and twirl.

Twitter · proper noun, noun, verb3

From twitter (“to utter a succession of chirps”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.