squirm
Plural: squirms
Noun
- the act of wiggling
- A twisting, snakelike movement of the body.
Verb
Verb Forms: squirmed, squirming, squirms
- To wriggle or twist the body, often from discomfort or embarrassment.
- to move in a twisting or contorted motion, (especially when struggling)
- To twist one's body with snakelike motions.
- To twist in discomfort, especially from shame or embarrassment.
- To evade a question, an interviewer etc.
Examples
- He began to SQUIRM when his opponent challenged his suspicious-looking seven-letter word.
- I recounted the embarrassing story in detail just to watch him squirm.
- The prisoner managed to squirm out of the straitjacket.
Origin / Etymology
First recorded 1690's, originally used of eels; cognate with Scots squimmer (“to wriggle, squirm”). Of uncertain origin. Compare dialectal quirm, whirm (“to disappear quickly, vanish suddenly and mysteriously”), Norwegian kverva (“to turn around, take away, remove, shrink”), from Old Norse hverfa (“to turn, vanish”). Alternatively, perhaps imitative or related to worm (in the sense of writhing movement) or swarm.
Scrabble Score: 17
squirm: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordsquirm: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
squirm: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary