Word.ws English Dictionary

twist someone's arm

twist someone's arm verb: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: To apply torsion along the length of the arm of (a person).

Verb

twist someone's arm (third-person singular simple present twists someone's arm, present participle twisting someone's arm, simple past and past participle twisted someone's arm)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: To apply torsion along the length of the arm of (a person).
    • I twist his arm, a snap signaling when it breaks. His screams reverberate in the tiny apartment.2013, Justina Ireland, Vengeance Bound, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 295
  2. (figuratively) To coerce, force, or cajole.
    • They had to twist his arm, but they got him to join the project.
    • Either to sully his reputation or to twist his arm into further cooperation, the authorities slapped a second, unrelated charge onto his sheet: He was accused of defrauding his clients' trust funds of a few hundred dollars.2009, Mark Gevisser, A Legacy of Liberation, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 152

Forms of twist someone's arm

third-person singular presenttwists someone's arm
present participletwisting someone's arm
past participletwisted someone's arm
pasttwisted someone's arm

Questions about twist someone's arm

What does twist someone's arm mean?
Twist someone's arm means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: To apply torsion along the length of the arm of (a person).
What part of speech is twist someone's arm?
Twist someone's arm is a verb.
What is the past tense of twist someone's arm?
The past tense of twist someone's arm is twisted someone's arm.

Words near twist someone's arm in the dictionary

  1. twist in the wind
  2. twist morphism
  3. twist morphisms
  4. twist of fate
  5. twist of the knife
  6. twist someone's arm
  7. twist someone's balls
  8. twist someone's words
  9. twist splice
  10. twist splices
  11. twist the knife

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: twist someone's arm (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-au-twist someone's arm.ogg.

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