Wiggled

Wiggled is the past tense and past participle of the verb wiggle. It describes any motion in which something moves with small, irregular changes in direction, especially from side to side or up and down. The subject can be a person, animal, object, or abstract thing that moves in a loose, shifting way.

Etymology and related forms: The word wiggle is native to English, with origins that are unclear; wiggle is formed with the standard -ed suffix to create the past tense, yielding wiggled. Related words include wriggle, which denotes a tighter or more twisting motion and is sometimes used interchangeably in casual speech, though wriggle can imply more energy or contortion.

Usage: In everyday writing, wiggled often describes bodily or mechanical motion: “The puppy wiggled its tail” or “The antenna wiggled in the breeze.” It may appear in metaphorical senses, describing movements that are uncertain or indirect, such as “the plan wiggled its way through the committee”—though such uses are less common and may feel contrived outside literary contexts.

As a common regular verb, wiggled appears across registers from children's books to descriptive prose, and is typically preferred when a simple, informal sense of motion is intended. In more precise or formal contexts, writers may choose specialized verbs to convey specific kinds of movement.