wrestle
A fight or struggle between people during which they grapple or otherwise contend with…A fight or struggle between people during which they grapple or otherwise contend with each other in order to throw or force their opponent to the ground, chiefly as a sport or in unarmed combat.
» Do you want to arm wrestle?
Meaning
3 senses(countable, uncountable)A fight or struggle between people during which they grapple or otherwise contend with each other in order to throw or force their opponent to the ground, chiefly as a sport or in unarmed combat.
(countable, figuratively, uncountable)A situation in which people compete with each other; a contest, a struggle.
(also, figuratively, uncountable)The action of contending or struggling.
- the act of engaging in close hand-to-hand combat
Examples
49 sentencesDo you want to arm wrestle?
He wrestled his attacker to the ground.
deEr rang seinen Angreifer zu Boden. — Ullalia
Tom said that he wanted to wrestle.
Did you say you want to wrestle?
Tom said he wanted to wrestle.
Origin
The verb is derived from Middle English wrestlen, wrastlen (“to engage in grappling combatThe verb is derived from Middle English wrestlen, wrastlen (“to engage in grappling combat or sport, struggle, wrestle; to twist and turn, squirm, wriggle, writhe; (figurative) to contend, grapple with, struggle”), from Old English wrǣstlian (“to wrestle”), a frequentative form of wrǣstan (“to twist, wrest”), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną (“to turn; to twist, wrest”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist”). By surface analysis, wrest + -le (frequentative suffix). Probably related to wraxle (UK, dialectal, archaic).
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Forms
plural: wrestlesSynonyms
4 synonyms- the act of engaging in close hand-to-hand combat:wrestlinggrapplegrapplinghand-to-hand struggle
Word family
2 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable