waggled; waggling
ˈwa-g(ə-)liŋ 
: to reel, sway, or move from side to side : wag
: to move frequently one way and the other : wag
1
: an instance of waggling : a jerky motion back and forth or up and down
2
: a preliminary swinging of a golf club head back and forth over the ball before the swing
Examples of waggle in a Sentence
Verb
He can waggle his ears.
He can make his ears waggle.
Noun
a quick waggle of her head to indicate “no”
Recent Examples on the Web
Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 May 2024
The observations revealed that elephants greeted one another with specific combinations of vocalizations and gestures, such as rumbles with ear-flapping or ear-spreading, as well as other seemingly less deliberate physical movements, such as tail-raising and waggling, according to the study.
—Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 9 May 2024
This part of the design also imparts a nice waggling action via its thin paddle tail.
—David A. Rose, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2024
And Adem Bona was a whirling dervish of a double-double, dropping in an and-one layup as the Trojans tried to chip away into a second-half lead, slapping his bicep and waggling his tongue and visibly sucking the life out of Galen.
—Luca Evans, Orange County Register, 27 Jan. 2024
Longer waggle runs indicate longer distances, while the angle of the waggle's direction indicates direction.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2023
The quality of the resource in question is encoded in the number of waggle run repetitions and in how quickly each dancing bee comes back to repeat the successive runs.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2023
On the romance front, there are a couple of kisses between supporting characters, and two mean-spirited characters flirt with each other (one waggles his bottom while wearing lederhosen-style shorts to appeal to the other) and are shown in short silk robes.
—Common Sense Media, Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2023
The irony of this shouldn’t be lost, as Nintendo’s infamous backstabbing of Sony in the Nineties directly led to the launch of the PlayStation, dethroning the Big N in Machiavellian fashion for a decade until the Wii waggled their way back into relevance.
—Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 11 Nov. 2023
Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 9 Mar. 2023
For higher-quality resources such as sweeter nectar, dancers repeat the waggle run more times and race back faster after each waggle run. Making Mistakes This dance is difficult to produce.
—Discover Magazine, 14 Mar. 2023
Another question that scientists are hoping to answer is if social learning could shape changes in a colony’s waggle dance, so that updates about shifts in their ecosystem could then be relayed to younger bees through their elders’ waggles, Nieh said.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 9 Mar. 2023
The silence of the forest might be interrupted with a siren salute from a passing law enforcement helicopter, or a wing waggle from firefighting aircraft passing en route to a fire.
—Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Apr. 2023
One part of this process – the famous waggle dance – was discovered decades ago.
—Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 8 Dec. 2011
The younger Yaz’s pre-swing bat waggle was the topic, hitting coach Justin Viele said.
—Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2023
But the waggle dance is just one form of honeybee communication.
—Sophie Bushwick, Scientific American, 17 Mar. 2023
Honeybees do the same to learn their waggle dances.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2023
Verb
These massive mammals greet each other with a mix of gestures and sounds—by flapping their ears, making rumbling noises, waggling their tails and reaching out their trunks, scientists reported last week in the journal Communications Biology.
—Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 May 2024
The observations revealed that elephants greeted one another with specific combinations of vocalizations and gestures, such as rumbles with ear-flapping or ear-spreading, as well as other seemingly less deliberate physical movements, such as tail-raising and waggling, according to the study.
—Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 9 May 2024
This part of the design also imparts a nice waggling action via its thin paddle tail.
—David A. Rose, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2024
And Adem Bona was a whirling dervish of a double-double, dropping in an and-one layup as the Trojans tried to chip away into a second-half lead, slapping his bicep and waggling his tongue and visibly sucking the life out of Galen.
—Luca Evans, Orange County Register, 27 Jan. 2024
Longer waggle runs indicate longer distances, while the angle of the waggle's direction indicates direction.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2023
The quality of the resource in question is encoded in the number of waggle run repetitions and in how quickly each dancing bee comes back to repeat the successive runs.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2023
On the romance front, there are a couple of kisses between supporting characters, and two mean-spirited characters flirt with each other (one waggles his bottom while wearing lederhosen-style shorts to appeal to the other) and are shown in short silk robes.
—Common Sense Media, Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2023
The irony of this shouldn’t be lost, as Nintendo’s infamous backstabbing of Sony in the Nineties directly led to the launch of the PlayStation, dethroning the Big N in Machiavellian fashion for a decade until the Wii waggled their way back into relevance.
—Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 11 Nov. 2023
Noun
In their earliest dances, the bees that had no guidance performed dances with more mistakes in their direction angles and in the distance encoding communicated by the vertical waggle run.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 9 Mar. 2023
For higher-quality resources such as sweeter nectar, dancers repeat the waggle run more times and race back faster after each waggle run. Making Mistakes This dance is difficult to produce.
—Discover Magazine, 14 Mar. 2023
Another question that scientists are hoping to answer is if social learning could shape changes in a colony’s waggle dance, so that updates about shifts in their ecosystem could then be relayed to younger bees through their elders’ waggles, Nieh said.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 9 Mar. 2023
The silence of the forest might be interrupted with a siren salute from a passing law enforcement helicopter, or a wing waggle from firefighting aircraft passing en route to a fire.
—Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Apr. 2023
One part of this process – the famous waggle dance – was discovered decades ago.
—Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 8 Dec. 2011
The younger Yaz’s pre-swing bat waggle was the topic, hitting coach Justin Viele said.
—Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2023
But the waggle dance is just one form of honeybee communication.
—Sophie Bushwick, Scientific American, 17 Mar. 2023
Honeybees do the same to learn their waggle dances.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'waggle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near waggle
Cite this Entry
“Waggle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/waggle. Accessed 23 May. 2024.
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