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Writhe wound its way to us from the Old English verb wrīthan, meaning “to twist,” and that ancestral meaning lives on in the word’s current uses, most of which have to do with twists of one kind or another. Among the oldest of these uses is the meaning “to twist into coils or folds,” but in modern use writhing is more often about the physical contortions of one suffering from debilitating pain or attempting to remove oneself from a tight grasp (as, say, a snake from a hawk’s talons). The word is also not infrequently applied to the twisting bodies of dancers. The closest relation of writhe in modern English lacks any of the painful connotations often present in writhe: wreath comes from Old English writha, which shares an ancestor with wrīthan.
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Examples of writhe in a Sentence
David Opie, IndieWire, 27 Jan. 2025
That morning, Flora had awoken from terrible dreams about her naked mother dying, writhing beneath a street light.
—Sheila Heti, The New Yorker, 19 Jan. 2025
The pain of seeing RGIII lying on the field, writhing in pain, is never far from Commanders’ fans minds.
—Kyle Feldscher, CNN, 18 Jan. 2025
Often, Marvin came up with performances on the spot as DoP Ruslan Fedotov filmed – for instance, writhing in a glutinous pool of mud.
—Matthew Carey, Deadline, 12 Jan. 2025
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Dictionary Entries Near writhe
Cite this Entry
“Writhe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/writhe. Accessed 1 Feb. 2025.
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