twist of the knife
twist of the knife noun: an action that worsens a difficult situation or increases a person's distress, irritation, or anger.
Noun
twist of the knife (plural twists of the knife)
- An action that worsens a difficult situation or increases a person's distress, irritation, or anger.
- But Mr. Christie had instructed the audience to listen for what he dismissively called the “memorized 25-second speech,” adding, with a twist of the knife, that it was “exactly what his advisers gave him.”2016 February 7, Michael Barbaro, “Once Impervious, Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie”, in The New York Times
Forms of twist of the knife
| plural | twists of the knife |
|---|
Origin of twist of the knife
See twist the knife.
Questions about twist of the knife
- What does twist of the knife mean?
- Twist of the knife means an action that worsens a difficult situation or increases a person's distress, irritation, or anger.
- What part of speech is twist of the knife?
- Twist of the knife is a noun.
- What is the plural of twist of the knife?
- The plural of twist of the knife is twists of the knife.
Words near twist of the knife in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: twist of the knife (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-twist of the knife.wav.
Cite this entry: “twist of the knife.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/twist_of_the_knife. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.