Etymology

wriggle

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Today it means: To twist one's body to and fro with short, writhing motions; to squirm. Full definition →

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The story

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”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.