arch. and dial. Forms: 7 twyre, 7– tweer, twire. [Of obscure origin, but corresponding in form to MHG. zwieren (now Bavarian dial.) to blink, to peer. There is prob. no connection with the cant word tower, towre, toure, given by Harman (1567), in his Caveat (1869), 84–6, and copied by Dekker and later writers.]
1. intr. To look narrowly or covertly; to peer; to peep. Also fig. of a light, etc.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., xxviii. When sparkling stars twire not thou guil[d]’st th’ eauen.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., IV. Wks. 1856, I. 52. I saw a thing stir under a hedge, and I peep’t, and I spyed a thing: and I peer’d, and I tweerd underneath.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Women Pleased, IV. i. I saw the wench that twir’d and twinkled at thee The other day.
1637. B. Jonson, Sad Sheph., II. ii. The common Parent of us all! Which Maids will twire ar, ’tween their fingers.
1723. Steele, Consc. Lovers, I. i. If I was rich, I could twire and loll as well as the best of them.
1874. Swinburne, Midsummer Holiday, etc. (1889), 19. Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down.
1893. Wiltshire Gloss., s.v., ‘How he did twire an’ twire at she, an’ her wouldn’t so much as gie ’un a look!’
† 2. intr. Used in sense ‘to wink.’ Obs. rare–1.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XI. xxxvii. I. 334. So hard a matter is it for a man to keepe his eies from twiring. And many men naturally cannot chuse but be evermore winking and twinckling with their eies.
Hence Twiring vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1604. Middleton, Father Hubburd’s T., Wks. (Bullen), VIII. 99. The tweering constable of Finsbury with his bench of brown bill-men.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xiii. 169. The Sunne … with a fervent eye lookes through the twyring glades.
1638. Lisle, Heliodorus, x. 172. The Wiseman lookt on King with twiring eyes.
1728. Mrs. Delany, Life & Corr. (1861), I. 175. We had ogling and tweering [printed tweezing], and whispering and glancing.
1738. The Briton Described, 13. And then for her Eyes, they are excellent at twiring.
c. 1832. Motherwell, Facts fr. Fairyland, ii. By the winking light of the tweering star.
