Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that wrings, especially a device in which laundry is pressed between rollers to extract water.
  • idiom (put (someone) through the wringer) To subject to a severe trial or ordeal.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who wrings, as clothes.
  • noun An apparatus for forcing water from anything wet; especially, a utensil for laundry purposes, in which, however, the clothes are not wrung or twisted, but are passed between two or more adjustable rollers which press strongly against each other.
  • noun An extortioner.

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

  • noun One who, or that which, wrings; hence, an extortioner.
  • noun A machine for pressing water out of anything, particularly from clothes after they have been washed.

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

  • noun A device for drying laundry consisting of two rollers between which the wet laundry is squeezed (or wrung); a mangle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a clothes dryer consisting of two rollers between which the wet clothes are squeezed

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

wring +‎ -er

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Examples

  • Mulroney through the wringer is the kind of treatment I expected Jean Chretien to get at the Gomery Inquiry, instead of the media adulation he received regarding economics and golf balls.

    $16 Million To Find Out That Mulroney Didn’t Pay Taxes On $225,000 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2009

  • Mulroney through the wringer is the kind of treatment I expected Jean Chretien to get at the Gomery Inquiry, instead of the media adulation he received regarding economics and golf balls.

    2009 May 20 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2009

  • Doc, I'm seeing the wringer mechanism from one of those old-style clothes washing machines which are popularly referred to as wringer-washers; and, it's in mid-wring of a garment with a French Fleur de Lys pattern.

    Cake Wrecks the Game Show? Jen 2008

  • Being a wringer is a right of passage for 10 year-old boys in Palmer LaRue's town.

    Archive 2007-02-01 Franki 2007

  • Being a wringer is a right of passage for 10 year-old boys in Palmer LaRue's town.

    WRINGER Stands the Test of Time Mary Lee 2007

  • "No, indeed," said poor Fiddlecumdoo, "I've been run through a clothes-wringer, which is much worse than being stepped on."

    The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People 1887

  • She had a proper washing machine she used, but the wringer was a leftover from an earlier time before these fancy new automatic washing machines.

    The Escapist : Latest News Shamus Young 2010

  • One of the latest to be put through the wringer is the Amtek U560 UMPC, which is based on a pre-Atom A100 processor ...

    Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now 2009

  • Yet the plain-living Amish who travel there by buggy in search of things no one else sells in person-a wood-burning cook stove or hand-crank mixer, perhaps, or a rebuilt Maytag wringer washer that runs on gasoline-probably have a different view of Lehman: that of a savior.

    HeraldTimesOnline.com 2009

  • metalnoir wrote: Doc, I'm seeing the wringer mechanism from one of those old-style clothes washing machines which are popularly referred to as wringer-washers; and, it's in mid-wring of a garment with a French Fleur de Lys pattern.

    Archive 2008-10-01 Jen 2008

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