Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
twain
 (twān) Pronunciation Key
n. , adj. & pron. Two. [Middle English tweien, twaine, from Old English twēgen; see dwo- in Indo-European roots.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
| Twain
(twān) Pronunciation Key
See Samuel Langhorne Clemens. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
twain
TWAIN graphics, standard
An image capture API for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems that enables the user to control a scanner or digital camera from image processing software.
TWAIN was first released on 1992-02-29 and is currently ratified at version 2.0 as of 2005-11-28. It is maintained by the TWAIN Working Group.
Kevin Bier, chairman-emeritus of the TWAIN Working Group and the one of the original co-author/editors of TWAIN 1.0, chose the name TWAIN after reading letters by Mark Twain. It was unofficially considered to mean "toolkit without an important name."
The word "twain" is an archaic form meaning "two". It appears in Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West" - "...and never the twain shall meet...", reflecting the difficulty, at the time, of connecting scanners and personal computers. It was up-cased to TWAIN to make it more distinctive. This led people to believe it was an acronym, and then to a contest to come up with an expansion. None were selected, but the entry "Technology Without An Interesting Name" continues to haunt the standard.
The TWAIN Working Group.
(2000-02-25)
Twain Harte, CA (CDP, FIPS 80966) Location: 38.04047 N, 120.23265 W
Population (1990): 2170 (1792 housing units)
Area: 9.5 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
Zip code(s): 95383
Twain, CA Zip code(s): 95984
Twain
Twain\, a. & n. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. tw[=e]gen, masc. See Two.] Two; -- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. "Children twain." --Chaucer. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. --Matt. v. 41. In twain, in halves; into two parts; asunder. When old winder split the rocks in twain. --Dryden. Twain cloud. (Meteor.) Same as Cumulo-stratus.
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