Meanings
plural wringers
- One who wrings.
We wringers of hands don't really want a step to take! We want to continue our hand-wringing and feel hostile toward anyone who acts as if there's something simple to do about any problem.
2000, Marlene Evans, Redbirds and Rubies and Rainbows, page 33- One who uses a wringer (machine).
Synonyms: mangler
- figurativelySomething that causes pain, hardship, or exertion; an ordeal.
1 more example
Reynders brushed a messy lock of orange hair out of her eyes for the dozenth time. Her body didn't change in the ADDC, actively resisted and eventually reverted any changes being consciously made to it, but in her constant state of nervous paranoia she was doing a bang-up job of making herself look like she'd been through several sequential wringers. "I know there's a better way to describe this, but it's very hard to focus. Bear with it. I hate being like this a lot more than you hate hearing it, trust me."
2023 September 24, HarryBlank, “Working Wonders”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 25 May 2024
Synonyms & antonyms
nounOne who uses a wringer (machine).
nounA device for drying laundry consisting of two rollers between which the wet laundry is squeezed (or wrung).
Origin
- Middle Englishwringere
- Englishwringer
From Middle English wringere, equivalent to wring + -er.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish mankeli, mankeli
- mankelidevice for drying laundry
- mankelifiguratively: something that causes pain, hardship, or exertion
- vääntäjäone who wrings
- vääntelijäone who wrings
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with wringer
Anagrams
Cite this entry
wringer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wringer
“wringer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wringer. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wringer,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wringer.
Source: wringer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.