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Writhe wound its way to English from the Old English verb wrīthan ("to twist") and is akin to the Old English verb wrigian ("to turn or go"). Wrigian gave us our words wriggle, awry, and wry. When something wriggles it twists from side to side with quick movements, like an earthworm. When something goes awry, its twists or winds off course, or toward catastrophe. Wry can mean "bent or twisted" but now usually implies clever, ironic humor. Nowadays, writhe often suggests the physical contortions one makes when enduring crippling pain or when trying to extract oneself from a tight grasp (as an animal from a predator's claws). Alternatively, it can imply an emotionally wrenching feeling (as of grief or fear) from which one seeks relief.

Examples of writhe in a Sentence

She lay on the floor, writhing in pain. a nest of writhing snakes

Recent Examples on the Web An awkward quiet descends as the women writhe through the air. — David Howard, Popular Mechanics, 30 Oct. 2020 That feeling — of a writhing text, something almost escaping its own language — became inspiration for Tropos, a quintet of young improvisers and composers who first met as students at New England Conservatory. — Jon Pareles, New York Times, 15 May 2020 On the far end of the facility, prone on a training table, was a player writhing in pain, with a towel over his head, obscuring his face. — Dallas News, 31 Jan. 2020 Images from the scene showed several firetrucks and more than a dozen ambulances surrounding the badly damaged structure, which was completely blackened and writhed on one side. — NBC News, 29 Apr. 2020 Villeneuve is considered the sprawling desert facility’s most technical course — a writhing snake’s nest of kinks, double-apex turns and long sweepers. — cleveland, 7 Mar. 2020 Equally worrisome are the implications of such a move along the border, particularly in terms of health care, with communities of asylum-seekers already writhing under the weight of overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions. — Miriam Jordan, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Mar. 2020 The Fourth King of Hell’’ sitting in judgement over souls of the dead who writhe in a basin of boiling water, is part of a series of 10, nine of which had already been acquired by other museums. — Steven Litt, cleveland, 22 Dec. 2019 Where tires had worn the ice down to the black asphalt, the wind of the passing cars was blowing snow in writhing snakes that the headlights caught, making them glow. — Lauren Groff, The Atlantic, 14 Jan. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'writhe.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.