wring
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English wringen, from Old English wringan, from Proto-Germanic *wringaną (compare West Frisian wringe, Low German wringen, Dutch wringen, German ringen ‘to wrestle’), from Proto-Indo-European *wrenǵʰ- (compare Lithuanian reñgtis ‘to bend down’, Ancient Greek ῥίμφα (rhímpha) ‘fast’), nasalized variant of *werǵʰ- ‘bind, squeeze’. More at worry.
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
wring (third-person singular simple present wrings, present participle wringing, simple past wrang or wrung or (obsolete) wringed, past participle wrung or (obsolete) wringed)
- To squeeze or twist tightly so that liquid is forced out.
- You must wring your wet jeans before hanging them out to dry.
- Bible, Judg. vi. 38
- He rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece.
- Shakespeare
- Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.
- To obtain by force.
- The police said they would wring the truth out of that heinous criminal.
- To hold tightly and press or twist.
- Some of the patients waiting in the dentist's office were wringing their hands nervously.
- He said he'd wring my neck if I told his girlfriend.
- He wrung my hand enthusiastically when he found out we were related.
- Francis Bacon
- The king began to find where his shoe did wring him.
- Bible, Leviticus i. 15
- The priest shall bring it [a dove] unto the altar, and wring off his head
- (intransitive) To writhe; to twist, as if in anguish.
- To kill an animal, usually poultry, by breaking its neck by twisting.
- Shakespeare
- 'Tis all men's office to speak patience / To those that wring under the load of sorrow.
- Shakespeare
- To pain; to distress; to torment; to torture.
- Clarendon
- Too much grieved and wrung by an uneasy and strait fortune.
- Addison
- Didst thou taste but half the griefs / That wring my soul, thou couldst not talk thus coldly.
- Clarendon
- To distort; to pervert; to wrest.
- Whitgift
- How dare men thus wring the Scriptures?
- Whitgift
- To subject to extortion; to afflict, or oppress, in order to enforce compliance.
- Shakespeare
- To wring the widow from her 'customed right.
- Hayward
- The merchant adventurers have been often wronged and wringed to the quick.
- Shakespeare
- (nautical) To bend or strain out of its position.
- to wring a mast
Translations[edit]
to squeeze or twist tightly so that liquid is forced out
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to obtain by force
to hold tightly and press or twist
to kill an animal by breaking its neck by twisting
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Translations to be checked
Noun[edit]
wring (plural wrings)
References[edit]
- wring in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- wring in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
Dutch[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
-
Audio (file)
Verb[edit]
wring
Categories:
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with homophones
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- en:Nautical
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English irregular verbs
- Dutch terms with audio links
- Dutch non-lemma forms
- Dutch verb forms
