squirm
/skwɝm/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.78 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To evade a question, an interviewer etc.
Example Sentences
- "The prisoner managed to squirm out of the straitjacket."
- "[…] around us there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and a seething caldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear and filled only with hunger and with rage. They clambered, squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing us steadily backward, though we emptied our pistols into them."
- ""Throw it away, dear, do," she said, as they got into the road; but Jacob squirmed away from her […]"
- "The Dutchman then missed a retaken second spot-kick, before the Trotters hit back when Daniel Sturridge's shot squirmed under Heurelho Gomes."
- "I recounted the embarrassing story in detail just to watch him squirm."
- "A tough question that made the press office squirm."
Etymology
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.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /skwɝm/
- British English: /skwɜːm/