1
as in to negotiate
to plan out usually with subtle skill or care
let me look at my schedule and see if I can't finagle a visit to the museum
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2
as in to cheat
to use dishonest methods to achieve a goal
she'll finagle until she gets exactly what she wants
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Recent Examples of finagle
Even for the wealthiest colleges, temporarily upping annual endowment spending could require a bit of finagling.
—
Emma Whitford, Forbes, 3 Feb. 2025
Others have been dreading it—and would happily finagle a deal with the universe to skip to some other day four years down the road instead.
—Angela Haupt, TIME, 17 Jan. 2025
Ruby even somehow finagles AJ’s ultimate true crime fixation, Amanda Knox, into meeting AJ for dinner.
—Scarlett Harris, IndieWire, 21 Dec. 2024
Shapiro and his business partner, Jeff Franklin, finagled a deal with New York’s fledgling USA Network to supply two hours of content a night, which eventually turned into eight; the network would split the advertising revenue with them 50/50, at $300 for a 30-second slot.
—Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 9 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for finagle
Emma Whitford, Forbes, 3 Feb. 2025
Others have been dreading it—and would happily finagle a deal with the universe to skip to some other day four years down the road instead.
—Angela Haupt, TIME, 17 Jan. 2025
Ruby even somehow finagles AJ’s ultimate true crime fixation, Amanda Knox, into meeting AJ for dinner.
—Scarlett Harris, IndieWire, 21 Dec. 2024
Shapiro and his business partner, Jeff Franklin, finagled a deal with New York’s fledgling USA Network to supply two hours of content a night, which eventually turned into eight; the network would split the advertising revenue with them 50/50, at $300 for a 30-second slot.
—Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 9 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for finagle
Recent Examples of Synonyms for finagle
Verb
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For starters, unlike Trump’s single-minded focus on China during his first-term trade war, Trump 2.0 is sparring with every country on the planet with the ostensible goal of negotiating freer and fairer trade deals, from our closest democratic allies to the Chinese Communist Party.—
Tiana Lowe Doescher,
The Washington Examiner,
6 June 2025
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Here’s the thing, no employee should be left to negotiate basic dignity on their own.—
Aparna Rae,
Forbes.com,
6 June 2025
Verb
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The responsibility and reasoning behind infidelity lie solely with the person who cheated.—
Mark Travers,
Forbes.com,
2 June 2025
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After reconciling, the former couple still faced several challenges, including cheating allegations and public social media fallouts.—
Elizabeth Ayoola,
Essence,
30 May 2025
Verb
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The park hosts various stargazing events, and larger groups can arrange hour-long astronomy programs (pending staff availability).—
Lydia Mansel,
Southern Living,
8 June 2025
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Fun fact: Cohen arranged the casting contract for his former Goonies costar Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).—
Sarah Weldon,
EW.com,
7 June 2025
Verb
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Deepfakes are manipulated images, audio recordings, or videos of real people that have been altered with artificial intelligence to misrepresent someone as saying or doing something that the person did not actually say or do.—
Alain Sherter,
CBS News,
6 June 2025
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This may surprise the more than 1 million Californians who received $21.65 apiece from the state in mid-May after a settlement reached by state Attorney General Rob Bonta with three gasoline trading firms that allegedly manipulated gas prices in 2016 during another refinery outage.—
Thomas Elias,
Mercury News,
6 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Finagle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/finagle. Accessed 13 Jun. 2025.
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