wrestle
Verbwrestles, wrestling, wrestled
Noun pluralwrestles
Formswrestles, wrestling, wrestled
Pluralwrestles
- 1To grapple or struggle with an opponent, trying to throw them or force them down, mainly as a sport or in unarmed fighting.
The two cousins would wrestle with each other on the lawn until one of them was pinned.
He wrestled at 152 pounds throughout college.
Similargrapple, tussle, scuffle
Note
The sporting core of the verb goes back to Middle English wrestlen or wrastlen, which also meant to twist, squirm and writhe. Sixteenth-century writers spelled it wrestell, wristle and wrastle: Coverdale's Bible of 1535 lists it beside fighting, leaping, dancing and putting the stone, and John Lyly praises people active enough to wrastle in the games of Olympia.
- 2To struggle or contend against or with someone or something, striving with great effort.
Small farming towns wrestle against the steady loss of their young people to the cities.
She wrestled with her conscience for weeks before reporting the fraud.
Similarstruggle, grapple, contend, battle
Note
The preposition carries the sense. Against points the struggle at an opposing force, as in William Tyndale's New Testament of 1526, where we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and rulers of darkness. With turns it inward, toward a conscience or a hard decision. For names the prize: Hugh Latimer's 1549 sermon faults prelates who wrestle for honor.
- 3To grapple with someone, sometimes forcing them down, so as to move them into or out of a position or to overcome them.
Police officers had to wrestle the suspect down before they could handcuff him.
The defender got a yellow card after he wrestled the striker to the ground in the box.
Note
Without a preposition, the verb is about control or victory rather than the match: one person wrestles another down, to the ground, or out through a door. In Paul Du Chaillu's The Land of the Midnight Sun (1881), a driver is a stout girl "strong enough to wrestle any man", able to throw him. Add with and the verb turns back into the sporting contest.
- 4To move or handle something with physical effort, usually against some difficulty or resistance.
It took two of us to wrestle the old refrigerator through the back door.
Still half asleep, he wrestled his arms into a heavy winter coat.
Similarmanhandle, heave, haul, maneuver, force
Note
Most often the verb comes with a path as well as an object: into, out of, through, lower. Byron's Don Juan (1821) has a man wrestling both his arms into a gown, and the image reaches well beyond the body: in 2023 Jeanna Smialek described the Federal Reserve's campaign to wrestle inflation lower. Whatever is wrestled resists, whether a coat sleeve or a price.
- 5To struggle physically with something, moving or handling it with effort, usually against some difficulty or resistance.
Two of us had to wrestle with the stubborn horse to get it into the trailer.
She spent ten minutes wrestling with the jammed zipper on her jacket.
Similarstruggle, grapple, battle, fight
Note
Followed by with, the verb puts the struggle in focus, against something that will not cooperate: a horse, a hog, a jammed zipper. Spoken forms show through in fiction. Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter (1940) has someone rassling with a horse, and William Faulkner's The Reivers (1962) asks "wrassling with hogs?", both nearer the old wrastle of the grappling verb.
- 6To compete in a wrestling bout or match.
Each athlete must wrestle at least three bouts to reach the final.
He wrestled his last match with a taped-up shoulder.
Similarfight
Note
Here the object is the contest itself: a match, a bout, a turn or, in older English, a fall. Wrestle a fall was the challenger's phrase. In Walter Scott's Tales of My Landlord (1816) the challenge runs "wilt thou wrestle a fall with me?", and Charles Kingsley's Theseus means to wrestle a fall with a king.
- 7To push one's way along or move with difficulty or effort.
Every morning, commuters wrestle through the packed station to reach their trains.
The little ferry wrestled through heavy seas for six hours before reaching port.
Similarpush, struggle, battle, fight
Note
This is the verb of hard going, and it wants a destination or a route: to a place, through a crowd, across a gap. Thomas Herbert in 1634 wrastled to Geer through a storm, and in Joseph Beaumont's Psyche (1648) breath must wrestle out through the nose. Richard Jefferies, in 1879, records villagers saying fire went "wrastling" from thatch to thatch.
- 8A fight in which people grapple or struggle with each other, each trying to throw or force the other to the ground, mainly as a sport or in unarmed combat.
The match ended after a fierce wrestle near the edge of the mat.
Their friendly wrestles on the lawn usually ended with someone in tears.
Similartussle, scuffle, struggle, grapple
Note
The noun for a single bout counts normally, one wrestle or several wrestles. John Milton's The History of Britain (1670) sets Corineus against the giant Gogmagog in a wrestle that ends with the giant hurled headlong from a rock, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's King Arthur (1848) pairs the strong wrestle with the breathless race. In a sports report, bout or match is the plainer word.
- 9A contest or struggle in which people compete with one another.
The boardroom wrestle for control of the company dragged on for months.
After a long wrestle between the two candidates, the vote came down to a few hundred ballots.
Similarstruggle, battle, contest, tussle, fight
Note
Political struggle gets a body in this figurative noun, with parties or nations locked in a bout. Thomas Babington Macaulay's The History of England (1851) has a state straining every nerve in a wrestle for life or death, and Thomas Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850) speak of both parties in the wrestle professing earnest wishes of peace.
- 10The act of struggling or contending, in a physical or figurative sense.
War in Italy, universal spasm of wrestle there, being now the expectation of foolish mankind.
1858, Thomas Carlyle, “Double-marriage Shall Be or Shall Not Be”Similarstruggle
Note
As a mass noun, with no article, it names struggling in general rather than one contest. Thomas Carlyle's History of Friedrich (1858) calls the expected war in Italy a universal spasm of wrestle. In everyday prose, struggle or strife does this job, and wrestle keeps its article: a wrestle, the wrestle.
- 11To throw a calf or other livestock animal to the ground so that it can be branded.
Neighbors from three ranches came to rope and wrestle calves at the spring branding.
Two cowhands wrestled the bawling calf down while a third pressed the iron to its hip.
Similarthrow
Note
A ranch word from the western United States that belongs to branding time: the calf is thrown so the iron can be set to its hide. Away from the branding pen, wrestling with an animal reads as a struggle to handle it, so this meaning leans on its setting, with calves, ropes and a hot iron in the scene.
- 12To give one's close attention to a task or similar matter, or to deal with it.
Note
In older prose the phrase meant close work rather than open conflict. Edward Coke, introducing his Institutes of the Lawes of England (1628), pictures the young student wrastling with difficult terms and matter. That neutral sense is archaic: present-day wrestle with carries a real struggle, so a modern reader hears effort where an older writer may have meant close attention.
- 13To contend in words, as in an argument, debate, or dispute.
In the debate the two candidates wrestle for an hour over taxes, and neither gives an inch.
At every faculty meeting, the two professors wrestled loudly over the meaning of a single clause.
Note
Treating an argument as a bout is an archaic picture. John Donne, preaching in 1626, speaks of those who were loath to wrestle with the people or force them from dangerous customs, a contest fought entirely in words. For a dispute between people, a modern writer says argue with or debate, and keeps wrestle for struggles of hand or mind.
- 14To twist and turn about; to wriggle or writhe.
Below the falls, the dark water seems to wrestle around every rock.
Gray smoke wrestled up from the chimney in slow, heavy coils.
Note
The twisting half of the Middle English verb behind the grappling sense survives here, kept for restless motion in nature. Odet de La Noue's The Profit of Imprisonment (1608) makes storm waters wrastle, and Bret Harte saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill in 1869. The use is archaic, so in plain prose writhe, twist or churn does the work.
- 15To engage in a contest or struggle as if in a wrestling bout.
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Origin
From Middle English wrestlen or wrastlen ("to grapple, struggle, wrestle; to twist and turn"), from Old English wrǣstlian ("to wrestle"), a frequentative form of wrǣstan ("to twist, wrest"), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną and ultimately Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- ("to twist"), so it can be read as wrest + -le. It is probably related to the dialectal wraxle and has cognates in Dutch worstelen, Middle Low German wrostelen, Saterland Frisian wrosselje and West Frisian wrakselje. The noun comes from the verb.