Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To writhe; struggle or twist about with more or less force; wriggle.
  • noun A wriggle; a wriggling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. To wriggle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb UK, dialect to squirm, wriggle or squiggle
  • verb rare to scribble, jot

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • This afternoon she was content to "scriggle" through the sketchers, and humming a little tune, she passed up to the churchyard.

    Miss Mapp 1903

  • Big girl as she was, Minnie always dressed her, and she would scriggle her toes so her stockings wouldn't go on, and would hop up and down so the buttons wouldn't button.

    The Girl Scouts at Home, or, Rosanna's Beautiful Day Katherine Keene Galt

  • Sometimes she would come out of the house, if the steps were very full, with her own sketching paraphernalia in her hands and say, ever so coyly: "May I scriggle through?" or ask the squatters on her own steps if they could find a little corner for her.

    Miss Mapp 1903

  • Still, it might be better to slip away unrecognized, and, thinking it would be nice to scriggle by him and disappear in the mist, she made a tactical error in her scriggling, for she scriggled full into the light that streamed from the open door where Captain Puffin was standing.

    Miss Mapp 1903

  • The trap had snapped behind her: it was impossible now to scriggle away.

    Miss Mapp 1903

Comments

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  • A first draft, made in pencil, filled several blue cahiers of the kind used in schools, and upon reaching the saturation point of revision presented a chaos of smudges and scriggles.

    --Vladimir Nabokov, 1974, Look at the Harlequins!‎ p. 80

    June 7, 2009

  • Nabokov seems such a quirky English addict1 I've gotta get into his stuff.

    June 7, 2009

  • The Mata Hari Finishing School Anthem

    A temptress must slink and not scriggle.
    Protuberances sway, they don't jiggle.
    Her throaty laugh low,
    Both knowing and slow,
    The femme who's fatale will not giggle.

    December 17, 2014