Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
battle-twig en · NOUN
Meanings
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(UK, dialectal) An earwig
1929 D. H. Lawrence, Up He Goes! (from Pansies) in The Complete Poems, page 553 https://books.google.com/books?id=dHB_YjKlyIgC&lpg=PA66&dq=%22battle-twig%22&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q=%22battle-twig%22&f=false
There isn't a damn thing in 'em,
They're as empty as empty tins;
they haven't the spunk of a battle-twig,
an' all they can think of is sins.
An' the wool of a thistle a-flyin' an' seeädin' tha haäted to see;
'Twur as bad as a battle-twig 'ere i' my oän blue chaumber to me.
1885, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Spinster's Sweet-Arts”, in Tiresias, and Other Poems, page 111:
Forms