Oh my word Waggle, Wiggle, Wrangle

Waggle is an informal word, a verb. It means causing something to move with short movements from side to side or up and down. Waggle is a verb and a noun. Waggle means wag, wiggle, wave, shake, flutter, wobble and oscillate. The slightest movement of his head makes his jowls waggle. Other strollers watch him curiously as his bottoms waggle. He was caught watching the woman’s waggle and she complained against him. He can waggle his eyelids while she can waggle her earlobes.

His bottoms waggle in a funny way catching other walkers’ attention. Waggly means unsteady; an adjective; he has waggly arms because of physical weakness. Wiggle also means causing something to move from side to side with rapid short movements. The teacher instructed the students to sit still without wiggling.

The mother sat in the garden to knit while her baby daughter lay in the pram wiggling her toes. Derivatives of wiggle are wiggled, wiggled, wiggling; wiggly, wigglier, wiggliest, wiggly (adjective – moving with a wiggle, wavy, not straight, a wiggly line, wiggly hairs, wiggly worm) “Trying to wiggle out of an eel dilemma,” reports International Herald Tribune 16 February 2010.

Wriggle means short twisting and turning movements caused by something or someone (sit still, please, no wriggling) jiggle, turn in, twist; jerk, squirm, writhe; wiggle, waggle; crawl, snake, worm, twist and turn, waggle. You can try to wriggle when you are tied up with ropes to a chair or a tree. The thieves wriggled out of the barbed fence!

Wriggle out of something means – avoid, duck, dodge, extricate yourself from the situation, talk your way out of something, worm your way out of. Derivatives of wriggle are wriggles, wriggling, wriggled, wriggly (adjective), wriggler. Wrangle is a verb. It means to argue or fight with somebody over something, angry arguments, disputing, row, dispute, scrap, disagree, fall out (informal), contend, quarrel, squabble, spar, bicker, altercation, quarrel, and brawl. Derivatives of wrangle are wrangles, wrangler, wrangling, wrangling, and wrangled.

The family waged a legal wrangle with the company for almost thirty years and finally won! People often advise disputing individuals to keep away from legal wrangles. The siblings of my neighbours never wrangle but my nephews are always wrangling for something while their parents try to wriggle them out of the scuffles.