squirm
A twisting, snakelike movement of the bodyA twisting, snakelike movement of the body.
Recorded US: Dvortygirl, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Meaning
1 sensesA twisting, snakelike movement of the body.
- the act of wiggling
Origin
First recorded 1690's, originally used of eels; cognate with Scots squimmer (“to wriggle,First recorded 1690's, originally used of eels; cognate with Scots squimmer (“to wriggle, squirm”). Of uncertain origin. Compare dialectal quirm, whirm (“to disappear quickly, vanish suddenly and mysteriously”), Norwegian kverva (“to turn around, take away, remove, shrink”), from Old Norse hverfa (“to turn, vanish”). Alternatively, perhaps imitative or related to worm (in the sense of writhing movement) or swarm.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.