What's a 'twizzle,' anyway?

If you're watching the ice dance short program competition, which began on Sunday in Sochi, and if you've watched any figure skating at all during the games, you've probably heard the term "twizzle" mentioned by the commentators. Okay, you've definitely heard "twizzle" being thrown around. A million times. And you're probably wondering: what's a twizzle?

We're here to help, and so is Yahoo Sports' Eric Freeman, who breaks it down in plain English:

There's a simple answer: a twizzle is a turn. More specifically, it's a turn common to ice dancing and seen less commonly in the figure skating American fans might know best. For a twizzle, a skater executes a one-foot turn and also moves across the ice, keeping the turning movement continuous. That specific movement is crucial, because it differentiates the twizzle from a stationary spin or series of turns.

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Well, it's not. A little respect for ice dancers, please. Back to Mr. Freeman:

Naturally, twizzles also come in different shapes and sizes. They can be clockwise or counterclockwise, on different edges of the skate, and forward or backward. The most common type occurs in an upright position with the free foot kept close to the skate leg.

So, there you have it. "Twizzle" is in fact a formal figure skating term. It's not just fodder for hashtags, like "#MovieTitlesWithTwizzle," which is flying around Twitter on Sunday. 

Twizzle is serious figure skating business. Sorry, Snoop Dogg, but it belongs to figure skating.