"hanky-twist" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "From the image of an anxious person twisting a handkerchief in the hands.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hanky-twists",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hanky-twisting",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hanky-twisted",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hanky-twisted",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hanky-twist (third-person singular simple present hanky-twists, present participle hanky-twisting, simple past and past participle hanky-twisted)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1993, Stephen L. Nugent, Amazonian Caboclo Society: An Essay on Invisibility and Peasant Economy",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Jack Walker, The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria: A Political Fiction",
          "text": "After years of hanky-twisting, here we are, irreversibly committed to this thing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Lionel Shriver, Paradise to Perdition",
          "text": "Cinema's standout bad guys didn't hanky-twist their lives away whimpering “Gee, am I doing something wrong?”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To fret; to worry ineffectually."
      ],
      "id": "en-hanky-twist-en-verb-Y7p0qjyA",
      "links": [
        [
          "fret",
          "fret"
        ],
        [
          "worry",
          "worry"
        ],
        [
          "ineffectual",
          "ineffectual"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "hanky-twist"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "From the image of an anxious person twisting a handkerchief in the hands.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hanky-twists",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hanky-twisting",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hanky-twisted",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hanky-twisted",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hanky-twist (third-person singular simple present hanky-twists, present participle hanky-twisting, simple past and past participle hanky-twisted)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1993, Stephen L. Nugent, Amazonian Caboclo Society: An Essay on Invisibility and Peasant Economy",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Jack Walker, The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria: A Political Fiction",
          "text": "After years of hanky-twisting, here we are, irreversibly committed to this thing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Lionel Shriver, Paradise to Perdition",
          "text": "Cinema's standout bad guys didn't hanky-twist their lives away whimpering “Gee, am I doing something wrong?”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To fret; to worry ineffectually."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fret",
          "fret"
        ],
        [
          "worry",
          "worry"
        ],
        [
          "ineffectual",
          "ineffectual"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "hanky-twist"
}