[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That twines, in various senses; twisting, winding, coiling, writhing, etc.; spec. of a plant: growing spirally round a support.
a. 1593. Marlowe, in Eng. Parnassus (1600), 480. The Eglantine and Rose … As kind companions in one union grows, Folding their twining armes.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 8. The twining tendrils of the Vine.
1669. Penn, No Cross, vii. 54. A Crooked, Twining, Twisting Serpent.
1735. Somerville, Chase, IV. 153. Spare not thou The twining whip, but ply his bleeding Sides.
1824. Miss L. M. Hawkins, Annaline, II. 213. The thick forest [was] decorated with twining plants.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot. (1870), 100. If such stems twist round other bodies in a spiral manner they are said to be twining.
Hence Twiningly adv., in a twining manner.
1731. Bailey, Twiningly, twistingly.
1854. Miss Mattie Griffith, Triumph of Honesty, v., in Louisville Daily Courier, 4 Feb., 4/3. She sank on her knees beside him, wound her arms twiningly and tenderly around him, and whispered, ‘My father, God is good.’
