wigglesome

comparative more wigglesome · superlative most wigglesome

1. informalCharacterized or marked by wiggling.

   Of course I helped you, you wigglesome clunker!

   1947–1948, Edward E[lmer] Smith, “Constance Out-Worsels Worsel”, in Children of the Lens (FP Science Fiction), Reading, Pa.: Fantasy Press, published 1954, →OCLC, page 101

   5 more examples

   "She's as wigglesome and unsettled as ever a sailor on land, or a fish out of the sea," said Granny, […]

   1866 August, “Little Gooseberry; or, The Book that Brought Bags of Gold”, in The Tract Magazine and Christian Miscellany, London: The Religious Tract Society […], →OCLC, page 201

   No 'm; Baby Palmer 's so squirmy and wigglesome!

   1882, Sophie May [pseudonym; Rebecca Sophia Clarke], “Flaxie Stays to Tea”, in William T[aylor] Adams, editor, Our Little Ones: Illustrated Stories and Poems for Little People, London: Griffith and Farran (successors to Newbery & Harris,) […], →OCLC, page 10

   Our children are unusually wigglesome—something, anything to quiet them, and we deal out toothpicks, shoe pegs, or something equally as foolish, hoping that quiet will again be restored, forgetting that we are only amusing, or soothing our little friends, when we might be giving them pleasant seat work, that would make the thought of some previous lesson more fully alive in their little minds.

   1899, Eva E. Mixer, “Original Devices for Interesting the Little Folks”, in Proceedings of the Thirty-third Annual Meeting of the Nebraska State Teachers’ Association Held at Lincoln, Nebraska, December 27, 28 and 29, 1898, Fremont, Neb.: […] Fremont Tribune, →OCLC, page 119

   I wonder what she will say when she sees a certain pink parasol that I saw in that box, and a white sash with pink rosebuds on it, and slippers that I'm sure wouldn't fit anything else in the house but her own wigglesome little feet.

   1900, Annie Fellows Johnston, “‘One Flew West’”, in The Little Colonel’s House Party, Boston, Mass.: The Page Company, published February 1923, →OCLC, pages 56–57

   You would think that the problem with painting children is that they are so wigglesome you cannot take a likeness, but the real problem is that they don't have much in the way of features except big eyes and foreheads and round cheeks.

   1996, Judith Merkle Riley, “[Introductory passage before chapter 10]”, in The Serpent Garden, New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press, →ISBN, page 116

   Synonyms: squirmy, wiggly