Word.ws English Dictionary

put through the wringer

put through the wringer verb: to interrogate or scrutinize closely; to subject to some trial or ordeal.

Verb

put through the wringer (third-person singular simple present puts through the wringer, present participle putting through the wringer, simple past and past participle put through the wringer)

  1. (idiomatic) To interrogate or scrutinize closely; to subject to some trial or ordeal.
    • They really put each candidate through the wringer before choosing one to hire.
    • Psychiatrists say that for many people who have been put through the wringer over the past decade, the climate extremes are one crisis too many.2023 September 16, Jason Horowitz, “How Do We Feel About Global Warming? It’s Called Eco-Anxiety.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    run through the wringer, put through the mangle

Synonyms of put through the wringer

Forms of put through the wringer

third-person singular presentputs through the wringer
present participleputting through the wringer
past participleput through the wringer
pastput through the wringer

Questions about put through the wringer

What does put through the wringer mean?
Put through the wringer means to interrogate or scrutinize closely; to subject to some trial or ordeal.
What part of speech is put through the wringer?
Put through the wringer is a verb.
What is the past tense of put through the wringer?
The past tense of put through the wringer is put through the wringer.

Words near put through the wringer in the dictionary

  1. put through
  2. put through hoops
  3. put through the hoops
  4. put through the mangle
  5. put through the mill
  6. put through the wringer
  7. put throughs
  8. put to
  9. put to bed
  10. put to bed with a shovel
  11. put to death

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put through the wringer (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: En-au-put through the wringer.ogg.

Cite this entry: “put through the wringer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_through_the_wringer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.