twitchel

Inherited from Middle English twichel, alteration of twychen (with change of suffix), from Old English twiċen (“fork in the road”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtwɪt͡ʃəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

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twitchel (plural twitchels)

1. (Midlands) A narrow alleyway between houses; a ginnel.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:alley

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     He caught her hand impulsively, and they went along the narrow twitchel.

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “twitchel”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

• witchlet