waggle

wag +‎ -le (“(frequentative)”). Compare continental equivalents Middle High German wacken ( > Danish vakle, German wackeln), Swedish vagla, West Frisian waggelje, Low German wackeln, Dutch waggelen.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwaɡəl/

  Rhymes: -æɡəl

waggle (third-person singular simple present waggles, present participle waggling, simple past and past participle waggled)

1. (transitive) To move (something) with short, quick motions; to wobble.
   • 1908: Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

     The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions.

2. (intransitive) To reel, sway, or move from side to side; to move with a wagging motion; to waddle.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, Act II, Scene 1,

     I know you by the waggling of your head.

   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, Fables of Æsop and other Eminent Mythologists: with Morals and Reflections, 8th edition, London: A. Bettesworth et. al., 1738, Anianus’s Fables, Fab. 222, p. 239,

     Why do you go Nodding and Waggling so like a Fool, as if you were Hipshot? says the Goose to her Gosselin.

   • 1942, Emily Carr, The Book of Small, “British Columbia Nightingale,”

     The tassel on the end of his pigtail waggled all down the path and, as he turned out of the gate, it gave a special little flip.

waggle (plural waggles)

1. A wobbling motion.
2. (golf) The preliminary swinging of the club head back and forth over the ball in the line of the proposed stroke.

• waggel