Wrestler

How to spell wrestler

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wrestler

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wrestler mean?

1. nounA person who takes part in wrestling, either as a sport or as staged entertainment.

Wrestler in a sentence

• The retired wrestler now coaches teenagers at the local gym.

• Each wrestler was weighed carefully before the championship bout.

Where does wrestler come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word goes back to the Old English verb wrǣstlian, meaning 'to grapple or struggle hand to hand', which was a frequentative form of wrǣstan, the ancestor of modern 'wrest', meaning 'to twist or pull violently'. The shared idea running through the whole family is forceful twisting, since wrestling is essentially the art of twisting an opponent off balance. The agent ending -er was added to give 'one who wrestles', and the form has been in continuous English use since the Middle Ages. The spelling preserves a silent 'w' at the front, a relic of how the word was once actually pronounced, much as in 'write', 'wring', and 'wrist'. That silent 'w', combined with the soundless 't' in the '-stl-' cluster, is exactly what trips writers up, because the spoken word offers no hint of either letter.

How the word is built

• wrestle (from Old English wrǣstlian: to grapple)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)