twin: [OE] Twin originally meant simply ‘double’, but the specific application to ‘two people born at the same birth’ had already evolved by the end of the Old English period. The word goes back via prehistoric Germanic *twisnaz to Indo- European *dwisno-, a derivative of the base *dwi- ‘double’ (other derivatives formed with the same -n suffix include English between and twine [OE] – etymologically thread of ‘two’ strands). => between, twine, two[twin etymology, twin origin, 英语词源]