as in wiggly
making jerky or restless movements
after a while, the little girl got wriggly and had to be taken outside to the church vestibule
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Recent Examples of wriggly
Medieval Christians looked at the very same phenomenon and imagined it as a reflection of divine will, the transformation of a wriggly worm into a flying jewel an earthly reminder of the transfiguration of Jesus to Christ.
—
Literary Hub, 24 Nov. 2025
Literary Hub, 24 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wriggly
Adjective
-
At the edges of the channel, near the walls, Rout and Lim’s team saw rapid fluctuations of molecules — those were the wiggly nucleoporins.—
Yasemin Saplakoglu,
Quanta Magazine,
9 Mar. 2026
-
The team then carefully lowers Caterpillar into the water, where the mother rushes to scoop her pup up as the two share a wiggly embrace.—
Rachel Raposas,
PEOPLE,
13 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
With that disclosure out in the open, the rest of the squirmy attendees subtly sank deeper into their seats, accepting Steinem’s orbit as a safe space.—
Savannah Walsh,
Vanity Fair,
22 Apr. 2026
-
One of them is a squirmy, intensely relatable dark comedy about the escalating horrors of planning a wedding.—
Hannah Jocelyn,
New Yorker,
3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Even Jason notices the guests are fidgety.—
Rafaela Bassili,
Vulture,
24 Feb. 2026
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The two go toe-to-toe in power and precision, but the Breville’s intuitive assembly is a massive improvement on the Cuisinart’s notoriously fidgety and fussy locking mechanisms.—
Noah Kaufman,
Bon Appetit Magazine,
29 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
And Pattinson is certainly accomplished at moving from twitchy to twitchier, playing the whole thing as a compulsively rational dialogue with himself.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
31 Mar. 2026
-
Just look at KuveNiemann’s crooked grin, frozen, faraway eyes and twitchy bearing.—
Theater Critic,
San Francisco Chronicle,
29 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
The Brooklyn grandmom was upset that the women were allowing their dogs to defecate in an empty lot next to her property, her son told the Daily News at the time.—
Kerry Burke,
New York Daily News,
25 Apr. 2026
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My mom was very upset that the inheritance was not divided up equally and asked me several times why my portion would be so much larger.—
R. Eric Thomas,
Mercury News,
24 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Around that time, Celeste’s family and friends became increasingly worried about her safety and whereabouts, urgently pleading for help from their neighbors, the public and police.—
Andi Babineau,
CNN Money,
23 Apr. 2026
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Two months into communicating with Niamh, not seeing any money flowing back into her crypto wallets, Holder became worried.—
Anna Schecter,
CBS News,
23 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Wriggly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wriggly. Accessed 27 Apr. 2026.
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