wriggle

verb

/ˈɹɪɡəl/

Etymology

From wrig + -le (frequentative suffix). Compare Dutch wriggelen (“to wriggle, squirm”), Low German wriggeln (“to wriggle”). Related to Old English wrigian (“to turn, wend, hie, go move”), from Proto-Germanic *wrigōną (“to wriggle”).

inherited from wriggen
suffixed as wriggle — “wrig + le”

Definitions

1
To twist one's body to and fro with short, writhing motions
To twist one's body to and fro with short, writhing motions; to squirm.
- Teachers often lose their patience when children wriggle in their seats.
- Both he and successors would often wriggle in their seats, as long as the cushion lasted.
2
To cause something to wriggle.
- He was sitting on the lawn, wriggling his toes in the grass.
To use crooked or devious means.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
1. A wriggling movement.

The neighborhood

Derived

wriggle out of, wriggler, wriggly

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for wriggle. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA