wrestling

USRES-uhl-ing/ˈɹɛs.l̩.ɪŋ/

5 meanings of wrestling

1
nouncountable or uncountable
A sport in which two opponents try to overpower each other by grappling with bare hands, using leverage, holds, and pressure points.
She took up wrestling in college and went on to compete at the national level.
Years of wrestling had taught him to keep his weight low and his hands busy.
2
nouncountable or uncountableabbreviationellipsis
Short for professional wrestling.
Fans of wrestling follow the storylines as closely as the matches, booing the villains and cheering the comeback heroes.
He left amateur sports for wrestling, where the falls were rehearsed and the feuds were written by a creative team.
Note
Dropping professional leaves the word meaning the performance: choreographed matches with outcomes settled in advance, staged as sports entertainment. The full phrase can also mean any wrestling done for pay, but the short form keeps to the act that imitates the sport. Context separates it from the competitive sport: storylines, villains and planned results mean the show.
3
verb
Present participle and gerund of wrestle.
Ranch hands spent the morning wrestling calves to the ground for branding.
Wrestling a heavyweight twice his size, the young champion still managed to pin him.
Note
As a verb form it can take an object, which the name of the sport never does: wrestling a calf for branding, wrestling a sofa up the stairs. It takes down when the point is getting someone to the ground, as in wrestling a suspect down, and after a form of be it builds the progressive: they were wrestling all afternoon.
4
nouncountable
Physical grappling with an opponent, or by extension a hard struggle to achieve something.
Her memoir traces a long inner wrestling with faith and doubt.
The playground wrestling stopped the moment the bell rang.
Similarstruggle, tussle, scuffle

Less common meaning

5
noundatedcountable
A single match between two wrestlers.
The games began with foot races and closed with a wrestling between the two strongest men of the valley.
Spectators bet heavily on the wrestlings, which drew bigger crowds than the races.
Similarbout, match
Note
Present-day English counts these contests as wrestling matches or bouts; a wrestling, plural wrestlings, now sounds dated. The older use sits naturally in a list of contests, as when F. D. Morice's Pindar (1879) names races, boxing-matches and wrestlings as the chief occasions of Pindar's poetry.

wrestling is a form of wrestle

wrestle, verb: To grapple or struggle with an opponent, trying to throw them or force them down, mainly as a sport or in unarmed fighting. Full entry

Forms: wrestlewrestles he/she/itwrestling -ing formwrestled past tense, past participle
Spelling: wrestle → wrestling: drop the e, add -ing

Practice

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Origin

From late Old English wræstlung.