Wriggle

//ˈɹɪɡəl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A wriggling movement.
  2. 2
    the act of wiggling wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To twist one's body to and fro with short, writhing motions; to squirm. intransitive

    "Teachers often lose their patience when children wriggle in their seats."

  2. 2
    to move in a twisting or contorted motion, (especially when struggling) wordnet
  3. 3
    To cause something to wriggle. transitive

    "He was sitting on the lawn, wriggling his toes in the grass."

  4. 4
    To use crooked or devious means. intransitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
wigglewrithewigglecrawlcrawlcreek

Example

More examples

"He will wriggle out of the fix."

Etymology

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”).

Related phrases

get a wriggle onwriggle out ofwriggle roomand fro

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.