1
as in negotiated
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
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in cheated
to use dishonest methods to achieve a goal
she'll finagle until she gets exactly what she wants
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Recent Examples of finagled
On Sunday, August 10, the JoBros kicked off their Jonas20 tour in New Jersey, with Nick telling the audience that after Joe landed a lead role in the Disney Channel Original Movie, their dad finagled a way for Kevin and Nick to get parts as well.
—
Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 11 Aug. 2025
This whole thing seems staged, planned, finagled, massaged, bamboozled, lollygagged, and all sorts of other long, silly-sounding words that may not necessarily apply to this situation.
—Brian Moylan, Vulture, 7 Aug. 2025
Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 11 Aug. 2025
This whole thing seems staged, planned, finagled, massaged, bamboozled, lollygagged, and all sorts of other long, silly-sounding words that may not necessarily apply to this situation.
—Brian Moylan, Vulture, 7 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for finagled
Verb
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These are trade-offs that can be negotiated, at both the local and national levels, to benefit our communities.—
Gideon Lewis-Kraus,
New Yorker,
7 May 2026
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His presence caused periodic traffic jams as Washington police closed lanes and negotiated with him.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
6 May 2026
Verb
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The reportedly yearlong relationship is notable in that, after their split in 2015, Stocking posted and deleted tweets saying the basketball player cheated, per The New York Post.—
Taijuan Moorman,
USA Today,
27 Apr. 2026
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This is the same team that cheated and got caught how many times, going back to Bill Belichick and golden boy Tom Brady (Deflategate)?—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
26 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators vice president and art teacher Rae LeGrone stood with a clipboard, alongside Erin DeMund, a teacher at Oaklawn Language Academy who had arranged a similar, though smaller, demonstration a week earlier in Charlotte.—
Rebecca Noel,
Charlotte Observer,
2 May 2026
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Access to private tours of the museums can be arranged, as well as private transportation around the islands.—
Lale Arikoglu,
Condé Nast Traveler,
2 May 2026
Verb
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Gas prices can be manipulated by war, the market or the discretion of how much oil companies want to refine.—
Kaitlyn Schallhorn,
Oc Register,
4 May 2026
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And getting back to the Jewish donors who supposedly manipulated Ferguson’s efforts to block mid-cycle congressional districting.—
Howard Libit,
Baltimore Sun,
3 May 2026
Verb
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Heizer specifically engineered it so that future humans, scavenging for scrap in a postapocalyptic scenario, would be forced to turn back from his monument empty-handed.—
Olivia Kan-Sperling,
Artforum,
2 May 2026
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Structural systems governability determines how easily governance can be built, whether workflows decompose naturally into discrete, measurable, audit-ready steps, or deliver value through fluid judgment that must be engineered into structure.—
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld,
Fortune,
2 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Finagled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/finagled. Accessed 8 May. 2026.
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