Word.ws English Dictionary

writhe

/ɹaɪð/

writhe verb: to twist, wring (something).

Verb

writhe (third-person singular simple present writhes, present participle writhing, simple past writhed or (archaic) wrothe, past participle writhed or (archaic) wrothe or (archaic) writhen)

  1. (transitive) To twist, wring (something).
  2. (transitive) To contort (a part of the body).
    • Cicero (as I remember) had gotten a custome to wryth his nose, which signifieth a naturall scoffer.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
    • She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good! / She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! / They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years, / Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, / Cold, on the stroke of midnight, / The...1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 2, stanza IV, pages 50–51
  3. (intransitive) To twist bodily; to contort one's self; to be distorted.
    • The game was engulfed in controversy when Rodwell appeared to win the ball cleanly in a midfield challenge with Suarez. The tackle drew an angry response from Liverpool's players- Lucas in particular as Suarez writhed in agony - but it was an obvious injustice when the England Under-21 midfielder...2011 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Everton 0-2 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2012
  4. (transitive) To extort.

Noun

writhe (plural writhes)

  1. (rare) A contortion.
  2. (knot theory) The number of negative crossings subtracted from the number of positive crossings in a knot

writhe meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

writhe in Hindi

to writhe, wriggle
ऐंठना a͠iṭhnā

writhe in Tamil

நெளிவுறு, மன உளைவு, வேதனை நெளிவு

writhe in Urdu

اینٹھنا, کلبلانا, پیچ و تاب کھانا, پھڑکنا, تڑپنا, تلملانا

writhe in Telugu

to twist or contort the body
గింజుకొను giñjukonu
More languagesFewer languages
writhe in Malayalam
ഞെളിയുക, ശരീരം തിരിക്കുകയോ പിരിക്കുകയോ ചെയ്യുക
writhe in Kannada
ಚಡಪಡಿಸು, ವಿಲಿವಿಲಿ ಒದ್ದಾಡು, ಮುಲುಕು, ನರಳು

Examples of writhe in a sentence

  • He got kicked in the groin and was writhing in pain.
  • When the ambulance doors opened, doctors were confronted with six moulaged clowns, each writhing in pain from impressive fake acid burns.
  • This affront to their immortal good taste leaves them writhing in agony—exposing all manner of vampireyness.

All 25 example sentences with writhe

Forms of writhe

Verb
third-person singular presentwrithes
present participlewrithing
pastwrithed
past participlewrithed
past (archaic)wrothe
past participle (archaic)wrothe
past participle (archaic)writhen
Noun
pluralwrithes

Past tense of writhe: writhed

Origin of writhe

From Middle English writhen, from Old English wrīþan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrīþan, from Proto-Germanic *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist, turn”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist, writhe”). Cognate with Middle Dutch writen (“to turn, twist”), dialectal German reiden (“to turn, twist, lace”), Danish vride (“to twist”), Swedish vrida (“to turn, twist, wind”), French rider (“to wrinkle, furrow, ruffle”, (< Germanic)). Compare also Lithuanian riēsti (“to unbend, wind, roll”).

Words formed from writhe

Words that rhyme with writhe

Questions about writhe

What does writhe mean?
Writhe means to twist, wring (something).
What is writhe in Hindi?
Writhe in Hindi is ऐंठना (a͠iṭhnā). See Writhe meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is writhe?
Writhe can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce writhe?
Writhe is pronounced /ɹaɪð/.
What is the past tense of writhe?
The past tense of writhe is writhed.

Words near writhe in the dictionary

  1. writeup
  2. writeups
  3. writh
  4. writh'd
  5. writh's
  6. writhe
  7. writhed
  8. writhedly
  9. writhen
  10. writheneck
  11. writher

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: writhe (page history and authors); ऐंठना (Hindi) (page history and authors); writhe (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); writhe (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); writhe (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); writhe (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-writhe.ogg.

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