Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Most people associate the word “twerk” with the visual of pop star Miley Cyrus doing her infamous dance move, but the Oxford English Dictionary said that the word has a surprisingly long history — 195 years, to be specific.
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But the word was originally spelled as “twirk” and was first used as a noun in 1820.
It used to refer to a “twisting or jerking movement; a twitch.”
In 1848, it was then used as a verb. The spelling changed from “twirk” to “twerk” in 1901.
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