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hanky-twist. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From the image of an anxious person twisting a handkerchief in the hands.
Verb
hanky-twist (third-person singular simple present hanky-twists, present participle hanky-twisting, simple past and past participle hanky-twisted)
- To fret; to worry ineffectually.
1993, Stephen L. Nugent, Amazonian Caboclo Society: An Essay on Invisibility and Peasant Economy: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.
2011, Jack Walker, The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria: A Political Fiction, →ISBN:After years of hanky-twisting, here we are, irreversibly committed to this thing.
2016, Lionel Shriver, Paradise to Perdition:Cinema's standout bad guys didn't hanky-twist their lives away whimpering “Gee, am I doing something wrong?”