writhe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English writhen,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English wrīþan (“to twist, bend; to bind, fetter”),^{[3][6][7][8][9]} from Proto-Germanic *wrīþaną.^[1][10][11] Its cognates include Old High German rīdan (“to wind, turn”), Old Norse ríða (“to wind, twist”), Swedish vrida and Danish vride.^{[12][6][10][3]} The OED compares Lithuanian riẽsti (“to bend, curve”), from the same Indo-European base,^[12][10] and Barnhart, Etymonline and Köbler give the form as Proto-Indo-European *wreit- (“to turn, twist”), an extension of *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[6][3][11] In Old English it was a strong verb of the first class, with the past tense wrāþ and the past participle wriþen.^[12][9][2] Weak forms appear in Middle English and gradually replaced the strong ones, although strong past participles lasted into the 17th century,^[12] and writhen survives in poetry.^[13][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To bind or fetter: about 725, in Beowulf, according to Barnhart.^[6] The OED also has Old English records of the verb meaning to bind up or wrap, to tie up with a rope, and to twist or coil.^[12] Bosworth–Toller lists to twist or give a curved form first, then to bandage and to bind.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Old English verb was transitive and physical, covering what was done to rope, bonds or wreaths: binding, wrapping, plaiting and twisting.^[12][8][9] Its senses of binding died out in the late Middle Ages, to bind up by 1475 and to fetter by 1425.^[12] Twisting was the part that lasted, and it could be violent: the Middle English Dictionary has twisting something out of shape and breaking a neck.^[2] The sense for which the verb is now known, contorting the body under strong feeling or pain, is intransitive; the OED's dating puts it perhaps before 1200,^[14] and Etymonline at about 1300.^[3] Chaucer used the verb of turning away and of casting out wreaths of smoke.^[15][12] The OED's record of smoke or flames moving in coils also starts with him.^[12] Figurative uses for turning towards sin were occasional in Middle English and especially common in the 16th century,^[3] and the verb could mean to twist someone's words.^[14][8] Johnson (1755) still defined it first as to distort and to twist with violence, with the Hooker quotation "his words are writhed" for forcing a meaning,^[16] and the English Dialect Dictionary records it for twisting something in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.^[17] The noun also began with an object, a twisted band or wreath, about 1400; the act of writhing is recorded only in 1611.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 725 – to bind or fetter, in Beowulf.^[6][12]
• c. 1000 – to twist or bend.^[6][12]
• perhaps before 1200 – intransitive, to contort the body from strong feeling or pain.^[14] Etymonline dates this use to about 1300.^[3]
• c. 1275 – to intertwine two or more things.^[12]
• c. 1400 – noun, a twisted band, a wreath (obsolete by 1569).^[12]
• before 1413 – of smoke or flames, to move with a twisting motion, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.^[12]
• 1611 – noun, an act of writhing, in Cotgrave.^[12][5] Barnhart dates the noun in this sense to about 1350.^[6]
• 1745 – noun, a twist or curl, especially of smoke or flame.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make twisting movements of the body, as in pain or struggle; to squirm: The injured goalkeeper writhed on the turf.^[18][4][5]
2. To move with twists and turns: An eel writhed across the wet deck.^[4][5][12]
3. To suffer acutely from embarrassment or distress: He writhed at the memory of his speech.^[18][4]
4. To twist the body or a part of it, as in pain; to contort.^[5][4]
5. To twist something into coils or folds, or out of shape; to wrench.^[5][12][8]
6. To twist things together; to intertwine.^[5][12][8]
7. (obsolete, Old English–1425) To bind or fetter.^[12][8]

Noun

1. An act of writhing; a contortion.^[5][18][12]
2. A twist or coil in something, especially of smoke or flame.^[12][8]
3. (obsolete, c. 1400–1569) A twisted band; a wreath.^[12][8]

Word family

• writher
• writhingly

Related words

• wreath
• wreathe
• wrath
• wroth
• wry
• wrist

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
10. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins