wrangle

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wranglen, which the OED calls of uncertain origin.^[2][3] Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Low German wrangeln (“to dispute; to wrestle”),^[4][5] or at least compare that word;^[2][6][7][8] the American Heritage Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary speak of a Middle Low German or Middle Dutch source.^[9][3] The Low German verb is a frequentative of wrangen (“to struggle, wrestle, make an uproar”),^[2][6][10] which also appears in Middle Low German wrangen and Middle Dutch wrangen^[3][7] and beside Middle High German rangelen.^[2] All these are related to wring,^[2][6][8][4] and Etymonline, following Watkins, traces them to Proto-Germanic *wrang-, from a nasalized variant of Proto-Indo-European *wergh- (“to turn”), from *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[4] Skeat instead made it a frequentative formed in English on Old English wrang, the past tense of wringan.^[11] Collins and the Century Dictionary add Norwegian vrangla and Danish vringle (“to twist, entangle”).^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To dispute angrily, to bicker: in 1377, in the B-text of Langland's Piers Plowman.^[2] Barnhart dates the same record to "probably before 1387".^[13] The Middle English Dictionary glosses its first quotation, from the C-text of about 1400, as contending with someone in a test of strength, used figuratively.^[3] Etymonline adds that the word occurs as a surname from the early 14th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Skeat explained the sense as a persistent twisting, then wrestling, then arguing vehemently.^[11] Hoad finds the word uncommon before the 16th century.^[14] From about 1570 it was also the word for arguing a thesis in a formal university disputation,^[2][7] which lies behind wrangler, the Cambridge name for a candidate placed in the first class of the mathematical tripos.^[2][14] From the 17th century it could take an object: to wrangle something out of someone by arguing,^[2][7] a use the Shorter Oxford now calls American.^[7] The herding sense has a different path: the American Heritage Dictionary treats it as a back-formation from the American wrangler, a person in charge of horses, recorded from 1888.^[9][2][13] The verb is recorded from the 1890s.^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1377 – to dispute angrily, to bicker.^[2]
• c. 1400 – to contend with someone in a test of strength, figuratively.^[3]
• before 1555 – noun, an angry dispute, a noisy quarrel.^[2] Barnhart dates the noun to 1547.^[13] Etymonline says the 1540s,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged the 15th century.^[15]
• c. 1570 – to debate, to engage in controversy; formerly to dispute publicly at a university.^[2]
• 1616 – with out, to argue a case or dispute to its end (obsolete by 1728).^[2]
• 1624 – to get something from a person by bargaining.^[2]
• before 1643 – to persuade a person by contention.^[2]
• 1794 – to spend time in wrangling.^[2]
• 1816 – to make a jangling noise.^[2]
• by 1897 – to take charge of horses or herd animals, in American English.^[4] The OED's first quotation is from 1899, in Remington.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dispute angrily and noisily; to bicker: The neighbours wrangled for an hour about the fence.^[5][15][2]
2. To argue or engage in controversy.^[15][2]
3. To get something by arguing or persuasion: She wrangled a grant out of the council.^[5][15][7]
4. To influence or persuade a person by arguing.^[5][15][2]
5. (Western US and Canada) To herd cattle or horses, or take charge of them.^[5][7][2]
6. (rare) To spend time in wrangling, with away or out.^[2][7]

Noun

1. An angry, noisy or long dispute: a budget wrangle.^[5][15][7]
2. The action of wrangling; angry argument.^[15][2]

Word family

• outwrangle
• wrangler

Related words

• wring
• wrong
• wangle

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Whitney, William Dwight, ed. (1889–1891), The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, New York: The Century Co. (1901 printing)
13. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
14. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster