[Echoic. Goes with TWANG sb.1]
I. Of sound.
1. intr. To give forth a ringing note, as a tense string or a stringed instrument when plucked; to clang. Said also of the sound produced. Also fig.
† To go off twanging, to be a great success. Obs.
1567. [see TWANGING ppl. a.].
1570. Levins, Manip., 23/47. To Twangue, resonare.
1607. R. Turner, Nosce Te, F iij. Now noses twang, guts grone.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., VI. (1626), 114. This said, the bow-string twangs.
1626. Massinger, Rom. Actor, II. i. Had he died, As I resolve to do,… It [a play] had gone off twanging.
a. 1700. Dryden, Iliad, I. 70. His bow twanged, and his arrows rattled as they flew.
1728. W. Starrat, Epist., 48, in Ramsay’s Poems (1877), II. 275. What tuneless heart-strings wadna twang When love and beauty animate the sang?
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., Theatre, 27. Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xviii. 50. We found the violin and guitar screaming and twanging away under the piazza.
1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Mrs. Hallib., II. v. [She] burst in at the door, with a violence that made its bell twang and tinkle.
2. trans. To cause to make a ringing note, as by plucking or twitching a tense string or strings of a bow or of a musical instrument; hence, to play on (an instrument). Also fig.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1595), 949. The Scythians, when they are disposed to drink drunk together, do diuerse times twang the strings of their bowes.
1652. Benlowes, Theoph., III. i. Muse, twang the powerful harp, and brush each String.
1788. R. Cumberland, Aristoph., Clouds, viii. He would not sit twanging the lute, not he.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, xxxi. Musicians came and twanged guitars to her.
1864. Engel, Mus. Anc. Nat., 45. The strings are of lamb’s gut, and are twanged with two small plectra.
1910. J. MacIntosh, in Ayrshire Poets, 139. Hoar Winter twangs his trump in vain.
† b. To twang one’s nose, to blow the nose loudly (see also 6). Obs.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, V. 343. The mother twang’d her damn’d nose.
1810. S. Green, Reformist, I. 202. Percival felt for his handkerchief, twanged his nose.
3. intr. To produce a ringing note by or as by plucking a string or stringed instrument; hence (in depreciative sense) to play on a stringed instrument. To twang (all) upon one string, the same string: cf. HARP v. 2.
1594. Lyly, Moth. Bomb., III. iv. I wish’d for a noyse Of crack-halter Boyes, On those hempen strings to be twanging.
1624. Gee, New Shreds O. Snare, 18. The plots of their Comedies twang all vpon one string.
1671. H. Foulis, Hist. Rom. Treasons (1681), 88. Both twang upon the same string.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxvii. 92. The musicians were still there,… scraping and twanging away.
1885. Chr. World, 15 Jan., 38/5. They took to twanging away on what seemed an inferior kind of guitar.
† b. In the phrases the worst that, as good as, ever twanged. Obs.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 110 b. A minstrel … ye wurste that euer twanged.
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 24. His skill is showne too make his Scholer as good as euer twangde..
1678. Ray, Prov. (ed. 2), 285. As good as ever twang’d.
1681. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen. (1693), 486. The worst that ever twang’d; He has all the ill qualities that you can name.
4. trans. To play (a melody or the like) on a stringed instrument; to sound forth on a twanging instrument. Also said of the instrument or its strings.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 207. Paris with his harpe did nothyng but twang fonde fansies of daliaunce and lasciuiousnesse.
1577. Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., viii. in Holinshed, I. 28/2. When the harper twangeth or singeth a song, all the company must be whist, or else he chafeth like a cutpurse, by reason his harmony is not had in better price. Ibid. (1582), Æneis, I. (Arb.), 41. Curled Iōppas Twanged on his harp golden, what he whillon learned of Atlas.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., IV. iii. (1820), 240. His sturdy trumpeter … twanging his trumpet in the face of the whole world.
1842. Thackeray, Fitz-Boodle’s Conf., Ottilia, ii. She twanged off a rattling piece of Liszt.
1851. H. D. Wolff, Madrilenia (1853), 111. Three guitar players, hired for the occasion, twanged a variety of airs.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, xiv. The cords of the guitar twanged out a few notes.
† 5. Of a speaker: a. trans. To utter with a sharp ringing tone; = TANG v.2 2. Obs. rare.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., III. iv. 198. A terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharpely twang’d off.
† b. intr. To speak. Obs. rare.
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, I. ii. The tongue of the oracle neuer twang’d truer. Ibid., V. iii. Thou twang’st right, little Horace.
6. intr. To speak with a nasal intonation or twang. Also trans. with nose (cf. 2 b). rare.
1615. [see TWANGING vbl. sb.].
1826. Scott, Woodst., v. With yonder Puritanic, Round-headed soldiers … I … twanged my nose and turned up my eyes.
1844. Willis, Lady Jane, I. 238. Nasal Smith and Jones Will twang as usual in ‘the better sphere.’
b. trans. To utter or pronounce with a nasal or other twang.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1810), IV. xxviii. 154. [She] Twanged out a heigh-ho through her nose.
1754. J. Shebbeare, Matrimony (1766), I. 17. The Master of the Family … twangs the Dictates of the Gospel through his Nose all Sunday.
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, I. 155. Hearing Miss Crab … twang out the following.
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., ii. (1858), 69. The Cicerone twangs his moral.
1864. Daily Tel., 29 July. A purer Whitechapel accent … than that with which a damsel with a dulcimer twanged out a nasal-guttural lyric.
1893. Saltus, Madam Sapphira, 191. ‘Now Becky,’ twanged the ponderous person, ‘what is your name?’
II. Of the action (without special reference to the sound).
7. trans. To pull or pluck (the string of a bow), so as to shoot.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, VII. ciii. But from his quiuer huge a shaft he hent, And set it in his mightie bowe new bent, Twanged the string, out flew the quarell long.
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, I. 67. He twang’d his deadly bow, And hissing fly the feather’d fates below.
1890. C. Martyn, W. Phillips, 236. Those [wits] twanged their bow-strings and sped their arrows of ridicule at so plain a target.
1891. E. Field, Bk. Western Verse, 25. He twanged his bow.
b. Used with reference to the bow (see BOW sb.1 13) employed in hal-making; also with the material as obj.
1882. Floyer, Unexpl. Balūchistan, 326. A boy ‘twanging’ wool with a bow, and reducing it to a coarse fluff.
1886. Cheshire Gloss., s.v. Bow, To ‘twang the bow’ was formerly considered a very skilful branch of hat manufacturing.
8. trans. To discharge (an arrow) with a twang of the bow-string; to let fly (an arrow). In quot. 1751 absol. Also fig.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic., lxxxvii. She … twanged off with the appellations of b—— and w——.
1807. W. Irving, Salmag., viii. (1824), 124. To be shot by the first lady’s eye that can twang an arrow.
1833. Mrs. Browning, Prometh. Bound, Poems 1850, I. 172. Where Scythia’s shepherd peoples dwell aloft,… And twang the rapid arrow past the bow.
1847. Tennyson, Princ., II. 380. A Thousand baby loves Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, xi. This … may not have been the precise long bow which George Firmin … pulled; but … he twanged a famous lie out.
1863. Reader, 31 Oct., 502. An athletic man … has twanged an arrow from his box against some object.
b. intr. Of an arrow: To leave the bow-string with a twang.
1795. Coleridge, Lines in Manner of Spenser, iv. When twanged an arrow from Love’s mystic string.
1831. G. P. R. James, Phil. Augustus, I. v. The missile twanged away from the string.
† 9. intr. To pluck, twitch at. Obs. rare–1.
a. 1678. Marvell, Appleton House, 648. At my lines the fishes twang.
