squiggle
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
-
a mark or movement in the form of a wavy line; curlicue
-
an illegible scrawl
verb
-
(intr) to wriggle
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(intr) to form or draw squiggles
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(tr) to make into squiggles
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
squigglesimple
-
squigglessimple
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have squiggledperfect
-
has squiggledperfect
-
am squigglingprogressive
-
are squigglingprogressive
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is squigglingprogressive
-
have been squigglingperfect progressive
-
has been squigglingperfect progressive
Past
-
squiggledsimple
-
had squiggledperfect
-
was squigglingprogressive
-
were squigglingprogressive
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had been squigglingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of squiggle
Explanation
A squiggle is a curly, looping line, like the squiggle that serves as your signature when you sloppily sign your name. If you can't read someone's writing, you can call it a squiggle or a scrawl. You can also use squiggle to describe decorative accents or drawn designs, like squiggles of paint in modern art or ornamental squiggles in the pattern on your sofa. Squiggle originated in the early 19th century and was initially used a verb derived from wriggle and squirm.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Richards’s signature style is to break down complex behavioral-finance concepts into minimalist line drawings — sometimes just a squiggle — with only a few words.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 16, 2026
"That's what happened here. We had all sort of noticed this fishhook squiggle on the rock. It was pretty prominent because it was really, really deep."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 18, 2024
I prefer a sprinkling of salt, a bed of raw onions and cilantro and a squiggle of green salsa.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
As McKinnon tells Robbie she must travel to “The Real World” for answers, the drawn map appears, showing a trail of eight dashes jutting out in a squiggle from Asia and into the map’s ocean.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2023
From this distance it was nothing more than a squiggle of graffiti in the earth.
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
The floor was so grubby that the thought of sitting anywhere on it was nauseating — and regardless, the lanes were now too dark for reading, lit primarily by bright neon stripes and squiggles.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
The off-white form of the rustic terracotta jar, shattered over millenniums and fastidiously reassembled, is elegantly decorated in rich brown and black designs, including bursts of rosettes and abstract squiggles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2025
The genus name uncus means “hook” in Latin, after the fishhooklike squiggles on the rock left by the fossils.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 19, 2024
After seeing more of the worm-like squiggles the team paid closer attention, taking note of fishhook's characteristics.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 18, 2024
With all of those red lines and squiggles dancing around on my essay, I wasn’t foolish enough to think he meant to tell me anything good.
From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia
Yields squiggled following the latest batch of reports on the economy.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 28, 2023
The book, compiled between 1967-1968, features Sir Paul McCartney's draft of the famous song alongside poetry and doodles squiggled by the music legend.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2022
Over the course of a profoundly productive journalism career, he was able to translate all those squiggled notes into some of the finest long-form writing The Post has ever published.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 15, 2020
Vegetable-focussed appetizers include marinated shishito and Jimmy Nardello peppers, for layering on crusty toast with thickly squiggled ricotta that’s been whipped until it’s as densely creamy as labneh.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 23, 2018
He rolled and he wriggled, he fought and he figgled, he squirmed and he squiggled.
From "The BFG" by Roald Dahl
Some look like earthworms and others are covered in tiny bristles, squiggling about.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2022
But just below the surface the music teems with inner details: flourishes of offbeat counterpoint for the voices, squiggling riffs for the instruments.
From New York Times ● Dec. 13, 2021
It's great for squiggling on a slice of pizza or on top of a bowl of fried rice, and its flavor can be found carried into all types of food products.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 18, 2021
The cicadas will mostly come out at dusk to try to avoid everything that wants to eat them, squiggling out of holes in the ground.
From Seattle Times ● May 4, 2021
To boot, Onofre’s TV antenna was so tall, so elaborate, so pronged, and so replete with squiggling copper and aluminum tubing and boosters, that it looked like a DEW-line radar interceptor in Greenland.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
