wriggle
/ˈɹɪɡəl/
wriggle verb: to twist one's body to and fro with short, writhing motions; to squirm.
Verb
wriggle (third-person singular simple present wriggles, present participle wriggling, simple past and past participle wriggled)
- 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.1724, Jonathan Swift, “Drapier's Letters”, in 5
- Synonyms:
- wiggle
- To cause something to wriggle.
- He was sitting on the lawn, wriggling his toes in the grass.
- Synonyms:
- wiggle
- To use crooked or devious means.
Noun
wriggle (plural wriggles)
- A wriggling movement.
wriggle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
wriggle in Tamil
- to twist one's body and move the limbs
- நெளி neḷi
wriggle in Urdu
- کلبلانا, مچلنا, چالبازی کرنا
wriggle in Malayalam
- പിടയുക, വിറച്ചു വിറച്ച്, ഇഴഞ്ഞുനീങ്ങുക
wriggle in Kannada
- ತಿರುಚಿ ಮುರುಚಿ ಚಲಿಸು, ಆಕಡೆ ಈಕಡೆ ಹೊರಳಿಸು, ಮೇಲಕ್ಕೆ ಕೆಳಕ್ಕೆ ಚಲಿಸು, ಜಾರಿಕೊಳ್ಳು, ನುಣುಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳು, ಕುಯುಕ್ತಿಮಾಡು
Examples of wriggle in a sentence
- His head wriggles on the wriggling neck,—his tongue wriggles in his mouth,—the words wriggle out,—and he wriggles all over, and all together.1886, Alexander Melville Bell, “An Alphabet of Orators”, in Essays and Postscripts on Elocution, page 171:
- I tried to ease my grip, but my hands were sweating so profusely that the lizards began to wriggle out of them.1972, Carlos Castañeda, The teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui way of knowledge, page 78:
Synonyms of wriggle
Forms of wriggle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | wriggles |
| present participle | wriggling |
| past participle | wriggled |
| past | wriggled |
| Noun | |
| plural | wriggles |
Origin of wriggle
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”).
Words formed from wriggle
Phrases with wriggle
Words that rhyme with wriggle
Questions about wriggle
- What does wriggle mean?
- Wriggle means to twist one's body to and fro with short, writhing motions; to squirm.
- What is wriggle in Tamil?
- Wriggle in Tamil is நெளி (neḷi). See Wriggle meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use wriggle in a sentence?
- His head wriggles on the wriggling neck,—his tongue wriggles in his mouth,—the words wriggle out,—and he wriggles all over, and all together.
- What part of speech is wriggle?
- Wriggle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce wriggle?
- Wriggle is pronounced /ˈɹɪɡəl/.
- What is the past tense of wriggle?
- The past tense of wriggle is wriggled.
Words near wriggle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wriggle (page history and authors); wriggle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wriggle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wriggle (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-wriggle.wav.
Cite this entry: “wriggle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wriggle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.