as in to flap
to move from side to side or up and down with quick jerky motions
the rabbit waggled its ears and hopped away
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of waggle
Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Apr. 2023
The younger Yaz’s pre-swing bat waggle was the topic, hitting coach Justin Viele said.
—Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2023
New Atlas, 2 Apr. 2025
Millions of people watched the awards shows where Williams waggled his hips at Tom Jones, or challenged Oasis’ Liam Gallagher to a fist fight — moments that have been absorbed into pop culture.
—Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 24 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for waggle
Noun
The silence of the forest might be interrupted with a siren salute from a passing law enforcement helicopter, or a wing waggle from firefighting aircraft passing en route to a fire.
—Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Apr. 2023
The younger Yaz’s pre-swing bat waggle was the topic, hitting coach Justin Viele said.
—Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2023
Verb
While the Wii’s motion controls were fun, not every player wanted to get up and waggle, and not every developer wanted to build their game around that.
—New Atlas, 2 Apr. 2025
Millions of people watched the awards shows where Williams waggled his hips at Tom Jones, or challenged Oasis’ Liam Gallagher to a fist fight — moments that have been absorbed into pop culture.
—Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 24 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for waggle
Recent Examples of Synonyms for waggle
Noun
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Anyway, while Zack is having his flap attack, Lala, Michelle, and Janet are doing Pilates, and Janet is trying to figure out just who in the group is talking to her.—
Brian Moylan,
Vulture,
30 Apr. 2026
-
Go hands-free in this cargo skirt, which has pockets with both foldover flaps and zippers to safely store your daily essentials.—
Michelle Rostamian,
PEOPLE,
26 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Down 2-1 in the 11th minute of stoppage time, Pinnock’s pass was flicked on by Sowunmi at the near-post and nodded down by striker Marcus Dinanga for 18-year-old George Evans to score.—
Anantaajith Raghuraman,
New York Times,
23 Apr. 2026
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The game was heading for a penalty shootout when Tomás produced a moment of individual skill by twisting in the air between two defenders as a pass came in from Badredine Bouanani and using his heel to flick the ball past Freiburg's otherwise outstanding goalkeeper Florian Müller.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
23 Apr. 2026
Noun
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These special issues now have shifted from doing an occasional kind of interesting little tail wag for readers based on what a luminary in the field thought might be kind of neat.—
Anil Oza,
STAT,
24 Apr. 2026
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These pre-conditions to talks were discussed at the EFL meeting, which just so happened to be held in The Belfry’s Masters Suite, or, as one wag put it, the room whose door is always open.—
Matt Slater,
New York Times,
21 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Pebbles twitched, branches waggled, cholla wiggled, weeds erupted then dried up and died.—
Alina Hartounian,
NPR,
20 Apr. 2026
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The launch can also be viewed on NASA's social media platforms include Facebook, twitch and X as well as NASA+, the agency's streaming service.—
Mary Kekatos,
ABC News,
30 Mar. 2026
Noun
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In addition, inherent design flaws contributed to the disaster, notably the graphite end switches of the neutron-absorbing rods.—
Georgina Jedikovska,
Interesting Engineering,
26 Apr. 2026
-
People here have waited for Booker to flip the alpha switch for a while now.—
Doug Haller,
New York Times,
26 Apr. 2026
Verb
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The game swung on these knife-edge moments, but the actual performance levels were similar from both teams.—
Mark Carey,
New York Times,
25 Apr. 2026
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But as the ball swung around the perimeter, opportunities arose for the likes of Dosunmu and McDaniels to crack the paint off the bounce.—
Jace Frederick,
Twin Cities,
24 Apr. 2026
Noun
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And there was-- there was a wiggle.—
Anderson Cooper,
CBS News,
9 Feb. 2026
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Each robot performs a tiny wiggle pattern to report information like temperature.—
Kurt Knutsson,
FOXNews.com,
28 Jan. 2026
Verb
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Jokic swished a 29-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Denver a 60-51 halftime lead.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
28 Apr. 2026
-
The crowd was scattered and some left early on the Monday evening, but fans still created plenty of noise when the Lynx swished home 3-pointers and made strong defensive plays.—
PJ Green
April 28,
Kansas City Star,
28 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Waggle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/waggle. Accessed 2 May. 2026.
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