Quinch
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To twitch, as if in pain; flinch, wince. intransitive, obsolete
"And therupon to beſtow all my Soldiers in ſuch ſort as I have done, that no part of all that Realm ſhall be able to dare to quinch […]"
Example
More examples"And therupon to beſtow all my Soldiers in ſuch ſort as I have done, that no part of all that Realm ſhall be able to dare to quinch […]"
Etymology
First attested 1530 as quynche, possibly from unrecorded Middle English *quinchen, itself of obscure origin. Perhaps a fusion of Middle English quicchen, quecchen (“to shake, tremble; twitch, flinch”) and Middle English winchen (“to flinch, wince; veer or move away”), making it equivalent to a blend of quitch + winch. Compare Saterland Frisian kwinkje (“to blink, wink with the eyes”), Middle Dutch quincken, quinken ("to shake, quiver"; whence modern Dutch kwinken, kwinkeleren (“to warble”)), German Low German quinken (“to blink, wink”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.