waggle
Americanverb (used without object)
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waggles,
present (3rd person singular)
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waggled,
past participle, past
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waggling
present participle
verb (used with object)
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waggles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
waggled,
past participle, past
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waggling
present participle
-
to move up and down or from side to side in a short, rapid manner; wag.
to waggle one's head.
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Golf. to make a waggle with (a golf club).
noun
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a waggling motion.
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Golf. a swinging movement made with a golf club to and fro over the ball prior to a stroke.
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wagglesimple
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wagglessimple
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have waggledperfect
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has waggledperfect
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am wagglingprogressive
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are wagglingprogressive
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is wagglingprogressive
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have been wagglingperfect progressive
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has been wagglingperfect progressive
Past
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waggledsimple
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had waggledperfect
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was wagglingprogressive
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were wagglingprogressive
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had been wagglingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of waggle
Explanation
To move back and forth or up and down very quickly (and a little erratically) is to waggle. I don't recommend that you waggle your arm under your teacher's face to get his attention. Try raising your hand politely instead. This word sounds like a cross between wiggle and wag. Just watch a really excited dog's tail moving and you'll get a sense of waggle's origin — it does derive from wag and its Old English root wagian, "move backwards and forwards." In golf, you waggle a club by swinging it around a bit before hitting the ball. And beekeepers describe the "waggle dance" honeybees perform to communicate information to each other.
Vocabulary lists containing waggle
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:
Scientists have spent years decoding the honey bee "waggle dance," a highly sophisticated form of communication.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 24, 2026
Every day, new people came, some people left, but the constant was Syd, his presence, his waggle, his ability to give unexpected joy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2025
He added: "He had a super swing - a no-nonsense swing. One waggle and away it went."
From BBC ● Mar. 10, 2025
Insects are known to be capable of social learning in the wild: the best-known example is the so-called waggle dance used by honeybees to communicate the location and quality of flowers.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 7, 2023
I decide to respond with the head waggle that means yes.
From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins
But he says the new research reveals more about the structure of a species’ communication system, much as scientists deciphered how the waggles of honey bees tell other bees where flowers are located.
From Science Magazine ● May 7, 2024
The researchers observed that bees alter the position of their antennae, which are touched repeatedly by the dancer as it waggles by, based on the angle of their body relative to the dancer.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024
“His tongue waggles, he talks fast. Smooth talker is how I’m going to explain it.”
From Washington Post ● Feb. 10, 2023
It's a fiercely hot afternoon in Milton Keynes and I'm chasing a small orange flag as it waggles just above a line of low garden walls.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2022
August turns to Marlena and waggles his finger at her.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Everyone laughed when she stuck out her foot and theatrically waggled it, as if showing off a designer stiletto.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2023
These they waggled at me in person one morning after rainstorms flooded the subways of Manhattan, in an enormous penthouse apartment with views of the Hudson River — and, Dixie noted, dramatic lightning strikes.
From New York Times ● Aug. 28, 2021
Brown waggled his head: he’d think about it.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 23, 2019
“Respect the axe. Don’t swing it everywhere. Don’t just throw it around all willy-nilly,” Meehan-Berg said, as I waggled the axe about.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 16, 2018
She raised one hand and waggled her fingers at the audience.
From "Gathering Blue" by Lois Lowry
Anyway, a discussion about the weather sparked Mr. Biden’s memory of an old movie, unspooling in his waggling mind.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 11, 2023
Zaharan was pudgy and empty-eyed, with a habit of waggling his index finger as he raved and yelled.
From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2020
Fast players had already hit the ball, but others were still waggling.
From Golf Digest ● Jan. 17, 2020
And yet, he might as well be waggling his eyebrows and shouting, “It’s alive!,” for all the gravitas this chintzy B-movie contains.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2019
Some kids started cackling like witches, waggling their fingers to be scary.
From "Root Magic" by Eden Royce
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.
