hanky-twist

verb

Etymology

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

Definitions

  1. To fret

    To fret; to worry ineffectually.

    • After years of hanky-twisting, here we are, irreversibly committed to this thing.
    • Cinema's standout bad guys didn't hanky-twist their lives away whimpering “Gee, am I doing something wrong?”

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for hanky-twist. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA