dial. Forms: 5 twe-, twychel(l, twachylle, 8–9 twitchel, -ell. [An alteration, or a variant with different suffix, of ME. twychen, late OE. twichene, OE. twycene, twicen a fork in a road, a forked way.

1

  The form twychen survived in ME. times in Oxford in the names of special passages or lanes: see Wood, City of Oxford (O.H.S.), I. viii. 187, 199, 223, etc., and Hurst, Oxford Topogr. (O.H.S.), 186, 197. In Lanc. and Yorksh. the reduced form twitch is still in use. Cf. also TWITTEN.]

2

  A narrow passage between walls or hedges. In quot. c. 1460 transf.

3

1435.  Nottingham Rec. (1883), II. 357. Ye comon twechell yat lyges on ye northe syd ye Fleshusse. Ibid. Twychel. Ibid. (1484), III. 229. Þe dore … þat gothe into the twychell betwix þe Shaumelles and þe Draperie.

4

c. 1460.  MS. Laud 416, lf. 54, in Rel. Ant., II. 28. She … wyth her twachylle wille encrece and multeply.

5

a. 1800.  Pegge, Suppl. Grose, Twitchell, a narrow passage, or alley, not a thoroughfare. Derb.

6

1848.  A. B. Evans, Leicester. Words, Phrases, etc., Twitchell, a narrow passage or alley between houses.

7

a. 1889.  Notice (Bedford), in N. & Q., 7th Ser. VII. 275/2. All persons passing by this twitchel are requested to go up or down directly.

8