wrinkle

¹

[ ring-kuhl ]

noun

1. a small furrow or crease in the skin, especially of the face, as from aging or frowning.
2. a temporary slight ridge or furrow on a surface, due to contraction, folding, crushing, or the like.

verb (used with object)

, wrin·kled, wrin·kling.

1. to form wrinkles in; corrugate; crease:

   Don't wrinkle your dress.

verb (used without object)

, wrin·kled, wrin·kling.

1. to become wrinkled.

wrinkle

²

[ ring-kuhl ]

noun

, Informal.

1. an ingenious trick or device; a clever innovation:

   a new advertising wrinkle.

wrinkle

¹

/ ˈrɪŋkəl /

noun

1. a slight ridge in the smoothness of a surface, such as a crease in the skin as a result of age

verb

1. to make or become wrinkled, as by crumpling, creasing, or puckering

wrinkle

²

/ ˈrɪŋkəl /

noun

1. informal.
   a clever or useful trick, hint, or dodge

Derived Forms

• ˈwrinkly, adjective
• ˈwrinkleless, adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of wrinkle¹

1375–1425; late Middle English (noun), back formation from wrinkled, Old English gewrinclod, past participle of gewrinclian to wind round; perhaps akin to wrick, wrench

Origin of wrinkle²

1375–1425; late Middle English, equivalent to wrinc trick ( Old English wrenc; wrench ) + -le

Word History and Origins

Origin of wrinkle¹

C15: back formation from wrinkled, from Old English gewrinclod, past participle of wrinclian to wind around; related to Swedish vrinka to sprain, Lithuanian reñgti to twist. See wrench

Origin of wrinkle²

Old English wrenc trick; related to Middle Low German wrank struggle, Middle High German ranc sudden turn. See wrench

Example Sentences

It’s just one of the wrinkles of using a technology that is only as good as the data fed into it.

From Fortune

It’s often observed that US presidents seem to age faster during their years in office, their newly grey hairs and deepened wrinkles serving as outward manifestations of the stress and pressure that comes with calling the nation’s shots.

From Quartz

KPBS added another wrinkle Thursday when it reported that redactions in the audit could be easily removed by copying and pasting the text into another document.

From Voice of San Diego

To eliminate any wrinkles, grab an iron and work out any creases on the highest setting—it’s not a light fabric so it can take a few passes.

From Popular-Science

Your goal was to make a numerical expression that equals 24, using each of four given numbers once, along with parentheses, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and exponentiation — that last one being a fun wrinkle.

From FiveThirtyEight

It's a special place that focuses closely on vegetables, definitely a new wrinkle for Houston.

From The Daily Beast

But there is an ugly underbelly to this otherwise charming story and it is not exactly a new wrinkle either.

From The Daily Beast

A more recent wrinkle is the doctor who prescribes from his own office, cutting out the middleman (read: pharmacist).

From The Daily Beast

A fabulous new book, The Siege: 68 Hours inside the Taj Hotel, by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, adds a new wrinkle.

From The Daily Beast

This could signify a lot of things: a renewed drive by labor, or some wrinkle in the tax code that I'm not aware of.

From The Daily Beast

They surround themselves with the atmosphere of the demi-monde and forget that a wrinkle is as fatal as a chaperon.

From Project Gutenberg

The keenest eye at that time could have detected no wrinkle on Lucy's lovely girlish face.

From Project Gutenberg

That is a philanthropic wrinkle for chapel keepers and other compounders of business and piety which we commend to special notice.

From Project Gutenberg

His ears were large, thin towards the end, and bound up with a sort of wrinkle at the origin.

From Project Gutenberg

I plunged ahead, as I saw Kramer take a breath and wrinkle his brow, about to make his pitch.

From Project Gutenberg