Word.ws English Dictionary

twin

/twɪn/

twin noun: either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one who was born at the same birth as a sibling.

twin: either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one...
Image: Robert Markowitz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

twin (plural twins)

  1. Either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one who was born at the same birth as a sibling.
    • twin girls, twin daughters, twin sisters, twin boys, twin sons, twin brothers, twin babies, twin children
    • Katie is Jessica's twin.
  2. (broadly) Either of two similar or closely related objects, plans, institutions, people, etc.
    • Your idea is the twin of mine.
    1. (broadly, figuratively) Either of two or more things, people, etc. that share a single feature.
      • He is my twin (wearing the same shirt, driving the same car, etc.).
    2. (broadly, slang, African-American Vernacular) A friendly term of address, typically for men.
      • Yo, twin, lemme rap at ya.
  3. A room in a hotel, guesthouse, etc. with two beds; a twin room.
  4. A twin crystal.
  5. A two-engine aircraft.
  6. (US) A twin-size mattress.
  7. (US) A bed, set of sheets, etc., designed for a twin-size mattress.

Verb

twin (third-person singular simple present twins, present participle twinning, simple past and past participle twinned)

  1. (transitive, obsolete outside Scotland) To separate, divide.
  2. (intransitive, obsolete outside Scotland) To split, part; to go away, depart.
  3. (passive, usually) To join, unite; to form links between (now especially of two places in different countries); to pair with.
    • Reading, the English town, is twinned with Clonmel in Ireland.
    • Coventry twinned with Dresden as an act of peace and reconciliation, both cities having been heavily bombed during the war.
  4. (intransitive) To give birth to twins.
    • “I’ve run to tell ye,” said the junior shepherd, supporting his exhausted youthful frame against the doorpost, “that you must come directly. Two more ewes have twinned — that’s what’s the matter, Shepherd Oak.”1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
    • Twinning today is abnormal in all higher primates, and possibly adaptive only in the one species with an obstetrical technology that permits a high rate of survival of twins.1992, George Christopher Williams, Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges, Oxford University Press on Demand, →ISBN, page 79
  5. (transitive) To be, or be like, a twin to (someone else); to match in some way.
    • The invert child and her innocent child are together lost children, twinning each other despite their distinctions.2009, Kathryn Bond Stockton, The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century, Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 111
    • I was awake to the horror of our twinning each other in paralysis, and feared that we would soon talk only about the daily, intimate care serious paralysis demands […]2017, Christina Crosby, A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 111
  6. (intransitive) To be, or be like, a pair of twins (for example, to dress identically); to be paired or suited.
    • “I see you got us twinning today.” Byrd kissed Lay quickly. “I wanted you to dress like me today,” he admitted.2018, Vivian Blue, Your Heart Is Mine: A Criminal Romance, Sullivan Group Publishing, →ISBN
    • “We're totally twinning today!” said Zoey. “You sure are,” said Chef Piper. “I whipped up a special dessert for tonight.”2019, Lisa Mullarkey, Paisley, ABDO, →ISBN, page 17

Adjective

twin (not comparable)

  1. Double; dual; occurring as a matching pair.
    • twin beds, twin socks
  2. Forming a pair of twins.
    • the twin boys
    Synonyms:
    twofold

Noun (2) capitalized: Twin

Twin (plural Twins)

  1. A player who plays for the Minnesota Twins.

Proper noun capitalized: Twin

Twin

  1. A town in Marion County, Alabama.

twin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

twin in Hindi

either of two people who shared the same uterus, or of two similar or closely related objects
जुड़वाँ juṛvā̃, यमज yamaj

twin in Tamil

இரட்டை, இரட்டையர்

twin in Marathi

twin
जुळे juḷe

twin in Urdu

either of two people who shared the same uterus, or of two similar or closely related objects
جُڑْواں juṛvā̃, یَمَج yamaj
More languagesFewer languages
twin in Bengali
যমজ jomoj
twin in Malayalam
ഇരട്ട iraṭṭa
twin in Kannada
ಅವಳಿ
twin in Gujarati
જોડિયું joḍiyũ
twin in Odia
ଯମ jama
twin in Sanskrit
यम yamá, नारङ्ग nāraṅga
twin in Sinhala
නිමුන් nimun
twin in Assamese
যঁজা zõza
twin in Pashto
بغرګونی bǧargunay, برغونی braǧunay
twin in Tagalog
kambal
twin in Arabic
تَوْأَم tawʔam
twin in Malay
kembar
twin in Indonesian
kembar
twin in Persian
جنابه jonābe, همزاد hamzād, دوگانیک dogānik
twin in Thai
แฝด fɛ̀ɛt, ฝาแฝด fǎa-fɛ̀ɛt, ลูกแฝด lûuk-fɛ̀ɛt
twin in Vietnamese
trẻ sinh đôi
twin in Myanmar
အမြွှာ a.hmrwa

Examples of twin in a sentence

  • The twins are coming over this afternoon.
  • Still we moved / Together, twinned, as horse's ear and eye.1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part 1”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
  • Yet, Manet heightens its effect by performing the clever ocular trick of practically twinning her with her pictorial counterpart, Madame Lejosne.2006, Aruna D'Souza, Tom McDonough, Tom Mc Donough, The Invisible Flâneuse?: Gender, Public Space, and Visual Culture in Nineteenth-century...
  • Simon Porte Jacquemus Twins With His Grandmother at the 2026 Met Gala [title]2026 May 4, Marie Courtois, “Simon Porte Jacquemus Twins With His Grandmother at the 2026 Met Gala”, in Vogue:

All 40 example sentences with twin

Synonyms of twin

Forms of twin

Noun
pluraltwins
pluralTwins
alternative form (obsolete)twynne
Verb
third-person singular presenttwins
present participletwinning
past participletwinned
pasttwinned

Plural of twin: twins

Origin of twin

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English twinne, twynne, from Old English ġetwin, ġetwinn (“twin, multiple”, noun) and twinn (“twin, two-fold, double, two by two”, adjective), from Proto-Germanic *twinaz (“double/two each, twin”), Proto-Germanic *twinjaz, *twīhnaz (“two each”), from Proto-Indo-European *dwino- (“twin”), from *dwóh₁ (“two”). Cognate with Scots twyn (“twin”), Dutch tweeling (“twin”), German Zwilling (“twin”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish tvilling (“twin”), Faroese tvinnur (“a double set”), Icelandic tvenna (“duo, pair”), Lithuanian dvynys (“twin”), Russian двойня (dvojnja, “twin”).

From Middle English *twin, *twyn, from Old English twin, twinn (“twin; double”, adjective), from Proto-Germanic *twīhnaz (“occurring in a pair; twofold; double”), from Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ (“two”). Cognate with Icelandic tvennur (“double”), Gothic 𐍄𐍅𐌴𐌹𐌷𐌽𐌰𐌹 (tweihnai, “two each”).

Words formed from twin

Phrases with twin

42 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with twin

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about twin

What does twin mean?
Twin means either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one who was born at the same birth as a sibling.
What is twin in Hindi?
Twin in Hindi is जुड़वाँ (juṛvā̃), यमज (yamaj). See Twin meaning in Hindi.
How do you use twin in a sentence?
The twins are coming over this afternoon.
What part of speech is twin?
Twin can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce twin?
Twin is pronounced /twɪn/.
What is the plural of twin?
The plural of twin is twins.

Words near twin in the dictionary

  1. twimindedness
  2. twimmolation
  3. twimmolations
  4. TwiMom
  5. TwiMoms
  6. twin
  7. twin bed
  8. twin beds
  9. twin block appliance
  10. twin block appliances
  11. twin cities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: twin (page history and authors); Twin (page history and authors); twin (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); जुळे (Marathi) (page history and authors); ഇരട്ട (Malayalam) (page history and authors); twin (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); જોડિયું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଯମ (Odia) (page history and authors); नारङ्ग (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-twin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “twin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/twin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.