Twice

Pronunciation

• IPA: /twaɪs/
• Rhymes: -aɪs

Origin

From twi- meaning two or both.

Full definition of twice

Adverb

1. Two times.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 5, He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.
• 1934, Santa Claus Is Coming to TownSanta Claus is coming to town. / He’s making a list, / And checking it twice, / He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice. / Santa Claus is coming to town.
2. (nonstandard, proscribed) half
• 1826, John Nicholson, The Operative Mechanic, and British Machinist: Being a Practical Display of the Manufactories and Mechanical Arts of the United KingdomThus it appears that if the machine is turning twice as slow as before, there is more than twice the former quantity in the rising buckets; and more will be raised in a minute by the same expenditure of power.
• 1896, Livingston Stone, Domesticated Trout: How to Breed and Grow ThemYou can't get anything thinner than a spring shad, unless you take a couple of them, when, of course, they will be twice as thin.
• 2010, Roman Polanski: A Life in ExileStanding in the lower portion of the boat, he apologizes while Krystyna paces above him, saying that he's just like Andrzej, “only half his age and twice as dumb.”
3. In a doubled quantity or extent.
4. To a doubled degree.

Derived terms

• a broken clock is right twice a day
• two-time
• twice as small
• twice as less