From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtwingetwinge /twɪndʒ/ noun [countable] 1 PAINa sudden feeling of slight pain I felt a twinge of pain in my back.► see thesaurus at pain2 → a twinge of guilt/envy/sadness/jealousy etc
Examples from the Corpus
twinge• I felt responsible and concerned, but also a twinge of frustration.• I feel a twinge of sympathetic embarrassment on my late colleague's behalf.• Then he thought of Benedicta and felt a twinge of doubt.• Charles even felt a twinge of pity for Mrs Sweet.• George felt a twinge of pain in his ankle from when he had slipped on the ice.• Johnson felt a twinge on the inside of his right leg.• I had a twinge of hard joy as I ran after the car.• I feel a small, icy twinge around my heart.• I'd had the odd twinge now and again, but my heart-attack was totally unexpected.• But the path took me back into darkness and I felt my first real twinge of panic.Origin twinge (1600-1700) twinge “to pinch” ((11-19 centuries)), from Old English twengan 