wriggle

«wriggle» in Mova's school dictionary: to twist and turn your body quickly from side to side:… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (wriggle, wriggles, wriggled, wriggling); noun (a wriggle, wriggles)

meaning for a pupil

1) To wriggle means to twist and turn your body quickly from side to side: "the worm wriggled in my hand". tree →

2) To wriggle into or out of something means to get into or out of it by twisting: "he wriggled into his wetsuit". tree →

3) To wriggle out of something means to avoid doing it by being clever or making excuses. tree →

4) (noun) A wriggle is a twisting movement. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science, worms, snakes, tadpoles and fish wriggle to move. In stories, children wriggle on carpets or in their seats when bored, and a sly character wriggles out of trouble. Phrases: wriggle out of, wriggle free, wriggle about, wriggle room.

examples

• The worm wriggled across the path. tree →
• Stop wriggling and sit still! tree →
• The puppy wriggled out of my arms. tree →
• She wriggled into her tight jeans. tree →
• He tried to wriggle out of doing the dishes. tree →
• The tadpoles wriggled in the pond. tree →
• The rope was loose, so the prisoner wriggled free. tree →

note

Past: wriggled. The w is silent: "RIG-ul". Wiggle (move side to side, often playfully) is very close in meaning; squirm is a wriggle from discomfort or shame.

In the corpora

• A scared animal may scratch, bite, wriggle free and fall.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «wriggle» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.