Wrestling
nounA sport or contest in which two people grapple and try to throw or pin each other.
How to spell wrestling
9 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce wrestling
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does wrestling mean?
- nounA sport or contest in which two people grapple and try to throw or pin each other.
- verbPresent participle of wrestle: grappling physically, or struggling hard with a problem.
Wrestling in a sentence
-
noun
The club offers wrestling classes on weekday evenings.
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verb
The accountant spent the morning wrestling with a stubborn spreadsheet error.
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noun
Professional wrestling draws huge television audiences.
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verb
Two children were wrestling on the living room carpet.
Where does wrestling come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word descends from the Old English verb wræstlian, meaning 'to grapple or struggle by twisting'. That verb was a frequentative form of wræstan, 'to wrest' or 'to twist forcibly', the same root that still gives us the modern verb 'wrest' (as in wresting something from someone's grasp). The whole family is native Germanic, related to words in Dutch and German for twisting and forcing. The activity of two people grappling to throw each other has carried the name since Anglo-Saxon times, and the spelling preserves two silent fossils that trip writers up: the initial 'w', which was once pronounced before an 'r', and the 't' carried over from 'wrest'. Remembering that wrestling is literally about wresting and twisting an opponent is the easiest way to keep both silent letters in place.
How the word is built
- wrestle (from Old English wræstlian: to grapple, twist)
- -ing (noun/verb suffix)
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