two [OE] An Old English word from the same source as *twain, twelve, twenty, *twilight, and twin [all OE], with an ancient root shared by Latin and Greek duo, source of double [ME], duo [L16th], duplicate [LME], and other words. The formula it takes two to…appeared in the 1850s in it takes two to make a quarrel, and in the 1940s in it takes two to make a bargain (see also tango). The saying two’s company, three’s a crowd was originally two’s company, three’s none, in the 1730s. Before the British currency was decimalized in 1971, twopence or tuppence [LME] was a standard sum. To add or put in your twopenn’orth [M19th] is to contribute your opinion; twopenn’orth is a contraction of twopennyworth meaning ‘an amount costing two pence’, used also for ‘a small or insignificant amount’.