wringle-wrangle

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English

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Etymology

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From wrangle by ablaut reduplication.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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wringle-wrangle (countable and uncountable, plural wringle-wrangles)

  1. (slang) A verbal argument.
    • 1969, Poul Anderson, Satan's World:
      ‘I can propose it,’ van Rijn said carefully. ‘After a month's wringle-wrangle, I get voted no. They won't believe either, SI would do something so bad like that, for some sternly commercial reason.’
    • 1996, compiled by Eric S. Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary, page 453, definition of troglodyte:
      A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination ITS troglodyte was flung around some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it was intended to describe adopted it with pride.

Verb

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wringle-wrangle (third-person singular simple present wringle-wrangles, present participle wringle-wrangling, simple past and past participle wringle-wrangled)

  1. (slang) To argue.
    • 1883, Sir Walter Besant, The Captains' Room etc., page 25:
      You know the foolishness of fighting; here is a haven of rest; and you must needs go back to wringle wrangle among the literary men of London.

Synonyms

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References

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  1. ^ Zimmer, Ben (2013 June 27) “Scalia's argle-bargle”, in Language Log[1], retrieved 2013-07-16