Also 8–9 riggle, 9 wreckle. [f. next. Cf. LG. wriggel wilfulness.]
† 1. A piece of sophistry; a shift, Obs.–1
1675. T. Tully, Let. Baxter, 14. To think such little wriggles and Evasions will pass for rational Discourse.
2. A quick writhing movement or flexion of the body, etc. Also fig.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 85, ¶ 5. They have always a peculiar Spring in their Arms, a Riggle in their Bodies.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 481. Such length as they [sc. animalcules] can throw themselves forward by one wriggle of the tail.
1829. Loudon’s Mag. Nat. Hist., II. 220. [The water-shrew] swims very rapidly;… his very nimble wriggle is clearly discernible.
1862. Trollope, N. Amer., I. 37. Fishes … assist … their motion with no dorsal riggle.
1899. J. Vincent, 1st Bp. Bath & Wells, 11. To kill a story that has … got into print, and to leave it dead, and without a wriggle.
transf. 1899. A. Lang, in Contemp. Rev., March, 403. There the line gives a wriggle, suggesting that the circle was evolved out of a spiral.
b. A sinuous or tortuous formation, marking, etc.; a wriggling or meandering course.
1825. Jennings, Obs. Dial. W. Eng., 84. Wriggle, any narrow sinuous hole.
1833. T. Hook, Parson’s Dau., I. i. The serpentine walks were mere wriggles.
1881. Ruskin, Bible Amiens, ii. § 24. A few careful pen-strokes, or wriggles, of your own off-hand writing.
1899. [see WRIGGLED ppl. a.].
c. A turn or sinuosity. rare–1.
1853. Hawthorne, Tanglewood T., Minotaur. At every new zigzag and wriggle of the path.
3. local. The sand-eel or sand-launce.
1876. [see WRECKLE].
1876. T. Hardy, Ethelberta, xxxiii. We dug wriggles out of the sand.
1885. Field, 26 Dec., 895/3. Sand-eels are known … along the Sussex coast as ‘riggles or wriggles,’ from their action of burrowing into the sand.
