wrestling

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wrasteling, also wresteling,^[2] inherited from Old English wrǣstlung (“wrestling; struggle”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from Old English wrǣstlian (“to wrestle”) + -ung.^[2][4] The verb is the source of wrestle and a frequentative of wrǣstan (“to twist”), the source of wrest.^[6] The OED treats the modern noun as formed from the verb with the suffix -ing.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of two people grappling, each trying to throw the other: Old English wrǣstlunge glosses Latin palaestram in a glossary,^[5][7] and in Wærferth's translation of Gregory's Dialogues it already means a struggle, the contest of good and evil spirits over a dying man's soul.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

By the early 13th century, in the Ancrene Riwle, the wrestling was a sport, and also an inner struggle against temptation;^[7][5] Laȝamon tells of many people gathered at a wrestling.^[5] A single bout or match is a wrestling from 1303, in Mannyng's Handlyng Synne.^[7] Etymonline dates the figurative use to about 1200 and the sense of a wrestling match to about 1300.^[4] Chaucer used the word six times, spelled wrastling or wrastlyng.^[8] From 1722 it was also used of striving earnestly in prayer.^[7] The Shorter Oxford records the dialect spellings wrassling and rassling, now chiefly North American.^[3]

Timeline

• Old English – wrǣstlung, grappling; also striving, contending.^[7][5]
• c. 1225 – the sport of wrestling; struggling, labouring.^[7]
• 1303 – a wrestling match.^[7]
• 1722 – striving earnestly in prayer.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sport in which two people grapple and try to throw each other or hold each other down, under rules that usually forbid blows with the fist: Olympic wrestling.^[9][2][3]
2. The act of wrestling, or a single bout: The boys' wrestling on the lawn flattened the flowers.^[2][3][7]
3. (figurative) A hard struggle or striving: his long wrestling with doubt.^[3][7]

Word family

• arm wrestling

Related words

• wrestle
• wrest

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins