tweet

Pluraltweets

Formstweets, tweeting, tweeted

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A short message posted on the microblogging service Twitter.

   The senator's tweet sparked an immediate response from reporters.

   Thousands of tweets flooded the hashtag within minutes.

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   Note

   Birdsong borrowed into software: the social media senses grew out of the earlier phrase "Twitter update" and out of twit and twitter. Jason Pontin was already using the noun in 2007, and early writers on the service stress its brevity. They describe characters ticking down as you edit a tweet and delivery by SMS to a cell phone.

2. 2
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To post an entry on the microblogging service Twitter.

   Politicians often tweet directly to their supporters during a campaign.

   The company tweeted an apology after the outage.

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   Note

   The verb works with or without an object. You can simply tweet, tweet an apology, or tweet the quoted words themselves, as in the BBC's 2017 "Mr Trump tweeted: …". The past is regularly tweeted. Twote turns up online as a nonstandard past and is best kept out of serious writing. Christian Wolmar's "Tweet in haste and repent at leisure" (2024) shows the verb settled enough for proverb-play.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A short, high-pitched sound like a small bird's call, or any similar whistle.

   A faint tweet from the hedge told us the chicks had hatched.

   The smoke alarm gave a single tweet before falling silent.

   Similarchirp, cheep, peep, twitter, chirrup

   Note

   An imitative word, shaped to copy the very sound it names, and a close relative of twitter. Because it mimics rather than describes, it stretches easily from birdsong to any thin, brief whistle, such as a smoke alarm's chirp. It is an ordinary countable noun, so a bird gives a tweet or a whole series of tweets.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To make a short, high-pitched sound, like the call of certain birds.

   Finches tweet busily in the garden at dawn.

   Something tweeted softly in the dark bushes.

   Similarchirp, cheep, twitter, peep, chirrup

   Note

   Normally the verb takes no object: birds and whistles simply tweet. George Herriman bends that rule in Krazy Kat (1934), where the fishes will have fun "tweeting tweets" on a sunken police whistle. He pairs the verb with its own noun for comic effect. The verb and the sound itself are best thought of as one word doing two jobs.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A post on any microblogging platform, not just Twitter or X.

   Each microblogging app displays a tweet differently, but the format stays short.

   Users migrating between platforms often repost their old tweets verbatim.

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   Note

   Here the name of one service has become a word for the format itself, and the stretch is still felt. Kristen Holmes on CNN in 2023 said "his tweets on Truth Social, or his posts on Truth Social," correcting herself mid-sentence. When the platform is not Twitter, post is the neutral choice, and tweet reads as the looser, more casual word.

6. 6
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To publish a post on any microblogging platform, not only Twitter or X.

   Many users now tweet across several microblogging platforms at once.

   The startup encouraged staff to tweet on its in-house network.

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   Note

   Once the verb loosened from Twitter, it needed a way to say where. The platform is named with on, as in "Trump tweeted on Truth Social" (2023), or Dan Moynihan having "tweeted on Bluesky" (2024). Without that phrase, readers are likely to assume Twitter. The same grammar, with or without an object, carries over from the Twitter verb.

7. 7
   interjection

   Used to represent the short, high-pitched call of a bird.

   Tweet! came the sharp cry from somewhere in the leaves.

   The cartoon bird hopped about going tweet, tweet all morning.

   Similarcheep

   Note

   The sound written down as a word, often repeated or set off with an exclamation point. In speech it tends to follow go, as in Talking Heads' 1977 song that likens its subjects to small birds making the sound, where David Byrne repeats it nine times. It belongs to playful, cartoonish or childlike contexts. In ordinary prose the noun is the more usual way to describe a bird's call.

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