Wiggle

How to spell wiggle

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wiggle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wiggle mean?

1. verbTo move or cause to move up and down or from side to side with small, quick movements.
2. nounA small movement up and down or from side to side.

Wiggle in a sentence

• verb

  The toddler could not sit still and kept trying to wiggle free of the chair.

• noun

  A quick wiggle of the cable showed that the connection was loose.

• verb

  If the screw is loose, you can wiggle it gently before tightening it.

• noun

  The puppy gave an excited wiggle when its owner came home.

Where does wiggle come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

Wiggle entered English in the late medieval period from the Low Countries, borrowed from Middle Low German wiggelen or its close Dutch cousin wiggelen, both of which meant 'to totter, sway, or wag back and forth'. The form belongs to a family of words built with the -le ending, an old frequentative suffix that signals a small, repeated, fidgety action, exactly the kind of motion the word describes. The root is related to 'wag', and you can hear the same restless sense in nearby words like 'waggle' and 'wriggle'. Over time the meaning settled on the familiar idea of moving something with quick little side-to-side jerks. The doubled g in the spelling preserves the short, clipped vowel sound and keeps the word looking like its sibling 'jiggle', which is the easiest way to remember it.

How the word is built

• wig- (from Middle Low German/Dutch wiggelen: to wag, totter)
• -le (frequentative suffix marking small, repeated action)