Hanky-twist
verb
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To fret; to worry ineffectually.
"There must in other fields be analogous forms of the brow-knitting and hanky-twisting which have accompanied the more narcissistic aspects of the 'literary turn' in anthropology (of which Writing Culture is least typical) and cognate fields."
Example
More examples"There must in other fields be analogous forms of the brow-knitting and hanky-twisting which have accompanied the more narcissistic aspects of the 'literary turn' in anthropology (of which Writing Culture is least typical) and cognate fields."
Etymology
From the image of an anxious person twisting a handkerchief in the hands.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.