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twain

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twain

  [tweyn] ,
Use twain in a Sentence
–adjective, noun
two.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME twayn orig., nom. and acc. masc., OE twēgen (cf. two ); c. obs. G zween
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Twain

  [tweyn] ,
–noun
Mark, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To twain
twain   (twān)   
n.   , adj. & pron.
Two.

[Middle English tweien, twaine, from Old English twēgen; see dwo- in Indo-European roots.]
Twain   (twān)   
See Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

twain 
O.E. twegen (masc.) "two" (masc. nom. and acc.), from P.Gmc. *twa- (see two). The word outlasted the breakdown of gender in M.E. and survived as a secondary form of two, especially in cases where the numeral follows a noun. Its continuation into modern times was aided by its use in KJV and the Marriage Service, in poetry (where it is a useful rhyme word), and in oral use where it is necessary to be clear that two and not to or too is meant.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

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)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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