Word.ws English Dictionary

wringle-wrangle

wringle-wrangle noun: a verbal argument.

Noun

wringle-wrangle (countable and uncountable, plural wringle-wrangles)

  1. (slang) A verbal argument.
    • ‘I can propose it,’ van Rijn said carefully. ‘After a month's wringle-wrangle, I get voted no. They won't believe either, SI would do something so bad like that, for some sternly commercial reason.’1969, Poul Anderson, Satan's World
    • A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination ITS troglodyte was flung around some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it was intended to describe adopted it with pride.1996, compiled by Eric S. Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary, page 453, definition of troglodyte

Verb

wringle-wrangle (third-person singular simple present wringle-wrangles, present participle wringle-wrangling, simple past and past participle wringle-wrangled)

  1. (slang) To argue.
    • You know the foolishness of fighting; here is a haven of rest; and you must needs go back to wringle wrangle among the literary men of London.1883, Sir Walter Besant, The Captains' Room etc., page 25
    Synonyms:
    argle-bargle

Synonyms of wringle-wrangle

Forms of wringle-wrangle

Noun
pluralwringle-wrangles
Verb
third-person singular presentwringle-wrangles
present participlewringle-wrangling
past participlewringle-wrangled
pastwringle-wrangled

Origin of wringle-wrangle

From wrangle by ablaut reduplication.

Questions about wringle-wrangle

What does wringle-wrangle mean?
Wringle-wrangle means a verbal argument.
What part of speech is wringle-wrangle?
Wringle-wrangle can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of wringle-wrangle?
The plural of wringle-wrangle is wringle-wrangles.

Words near wringle-wrangle in the dictionary

  1. wringing
  2. wringing out
  3. wringing out one's sock
  4. wringing wet
  5. wringings
  6. wringle-wrangle
  7. wringle-wrangled
  8. wringle-wrangles
  9. wringle-wrangling
  10. wrings
  11. wrings out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wringle-wrangle (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-wringle-wrangle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wringle-wrangle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wringle-wrangle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.