Dictionary

hanky-twist en · VERB

Etymology

From the image of an anxious person twisting a handkerchief in the hands.

Meanings

1. To fret; to worry ineffectually.
   • After years of hanky-twisting, here we are, irreversibly committed to this thing. 2011, Jack Walker, The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria: A Political Fiction, →ISBN:
   • Cinema's standout bad guys didn't hanky-twist their lives away whimpering “Gee, am I doing something wrong?” 2016, Lionel Shriver, Paradise to Perdition:
   • 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. 1993, Stephen L. Nugent, Amazonian Caboclo Society: An Essay on Invisibility and Peasant Economy:

Forms