finagle
/fɪˈneɪ.ɡəl/
finagle verb: to obtain, arrange, or achieve by indirect, complicated and/or intensive efforts.
Verb
finagle (third-person singular simple present finagles, present participle finagling, simple past and past participle finagled)
- To obtain, arrange, or achieve by indirect, complicated and/or intensive efforts.
- finagle a day off work
- She finagled her way around so that her arms were now clasped around his neck. So as not to cause a scene, Jason began to sway with her as if they had intended to dance. “Where's your counterpart tonight, Mandy?” he asked with a sly smile. “I thought you and Carl Maycomb were seeing each other.”...2007, Ashley Ezell, Harvest of Hearts, Ashley Ezell, →ISBN, page 124
- To obtain, arrange, or achieve by deceitful methods, by trickery.
- finagled his way out of a ticket by pretending to be on the way to a funeral, distraught
- Down the third-floor hallway, she noticed that the police tape had been removed from George Vandercloop's door. Did that mean Sunrise Village was now free to rent it to a new tenant? She tried the door knob and found it locked. Not that she expected she'd find anything more in the apartment than...2017, Judith Arnold, Kick The Bucket: A Lainie Lovett Mystery, Judith Arnold, →ISBN
- To cheat or swindle; to use crafty, deceitful methods. (often with "out of" preceding the object)
- shady stockbrokers who finagle their clients out of fortunes.
Examples of finagle in a sentence
- She finagled her way around so that her arms were now clasped around his neck.2007, Ashley Ezell, Harvest of Hearts, Ashley Ezell, →ISBN, page 124:
- She finagled her way out, slowly and methodically replaced the spilled contents back in and went about her way She stood outside a hair salon for two days...2012, Jonathan Logan Donovan, Husk: A Tale of Human Hunger, AuthorHouse, →ISBN:
- The kitten followed Sophie everywhere and had finagled her way into free run of the house.2017, Allie Pleiter, Myra Johnson, Annie Hemby, Harlequin Love Inspired September 2017-Box Set 2 of 2: The Texas Rancher's New Family\Her...
- Not that she expected she'd find anything more in the apartment than she'd seen the one time she'd finagled her way inside.2017, Judith Arnold, Kick The Bucket: A Lainie Lovett Mystery, Judith Arnold, →ISBN:
Synonyms of finagle
Forms of finagle
| third-person singular present | finagles |
|---|---|
| present participle | finagling |
| past participle | finagled |
| past | finagled |
| alternative form | finangle |
| alternative form | phenagle |
Origin of finagle
Americanism from the 1920s, perhaps combining an alteration of fainaigue (“to renege”) with the suffix + -le (“frequentative”), possibly influenced by inveigle; compare haggle.
Words formed from finagle
Words that rhyme with finagle
Questions about finagle
- What does finagle mean?
- Finagle means to obtain, arrange, or achieve by indirect, complicated and/or intensive efforts.
- How do you use finagle in a sentence?
- She finagled her way around so that her arms were now clasped around his neck.
- What part of speech is finagle?
- Finagle is a verb.
- How do you pronounce finagle?
- Finagle is pronounced /fɪˈneɪ.ɡəl/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of finagle?
- The past tense of finagle is finagled.
Words near finagle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: finagle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-finagle.wav, En-us-finagle.oga.
Cite this entry: “finagle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/finagle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.