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What is "wrangle"

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wrangle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wrangle
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
bitter
▪ Thus began a long and bitter wrangle between Beck and the private power interests.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ wrangles over the budget
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Bureaucratic wrangles were conspicuous at every level.
▪ In the United States, a complex wrangle is taking place over a range of possible standards.
▪ The wrangle was finally resolved in January last year.
▪ The decisions of the union delegations will probably mean a continuing wrangle.
▪ The leisure centre has been at the centre of a compensation wrangle since serious building defects were discovered last year.
▪ The plan was to avoid annual parliamentary wrangles.
II.verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As the wrangling has stretched into the new year, Clinton has moved up some in public esteem.
▪ He was wrangling for the best deal he could get and trying to ensure it would not be his last.
▪ In their last weekly meeting before the summer recess the commissioners wrangled over the final wording of the document.
▪ It follows years of wrangling over a controversial by-pass.
▪ Since the freehold all belonged to the boss, wrangling over ownership was beside the point.
▪ Sources say the parties are also wrangling over the length of the deal.
▪ The construction of this market has led to four years of wrangling that could yet scupper agreement.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wrangle

Wrangle \Wran"gle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Wrangled; p. pr. & vb. n. Wrangling.] [OE. wranglen to wrestle. See Wrong, Wring.]

  1. To argue; to debate; to dispute. [Obs.]

  2. To dispute angrily; to quarrel peevishly and noisily; to brawl; to altercate. ``In spite of occasional wranglings.''
    --Macaulay.

    For a score of kingdoms you should wrangle.
    --Shak.

    He did not know what it was to wrangle on indifferent points.
    --Addison.

Wrangle

Wrangle \Wran"gle\, v. t. To involve in a quarrel or dispute; to embroil. [R.]
--Bp. Sanderson.

Wrangle

Wrangle \Wran"gle\, n. An angry dispute; a noisy quarrel; a squabble; an altercation.

Syn: Altercation; bickering; brawl; jar; jangle; contest; controversy. See Altercation.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wrangle

late 14c., from Low German wrangeln "to dispute, to wrestle," related to Middle Low German wringen, from Proto-Germanic *wrang-, from PIE *wrengh-, nasalized variant of *wergh- "to turn" (see wring). Meaning "take charge of horses" is by 1897, American English. Related: Wrangled; wrangling. The noun is recorded from 1540s.

Wiktionary
wrangle

n. 1 An act of wrangling. 2 An angry dispute. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To bicker, or quarrel angrily and noisily. 2 (context transitive English) to herd horses or other livestock 3 (context transitive English) To involve in a quarrel or dispute; to embroil. 4 (misspelling of wangle English)

Related phrases:
WordNet
wrangle

  1. n. an angry dispute; "they had a quarrel"; "they had words" [syn: quarrel, row, words, run-in, dustup]

  2. an instance of intense argument (as in bargaining) [syn: haggle, haggling, wrangling]

wrangle

  1. v. to quarrel noisily, angrily or disruptively; "The bar keeper threw them out, but they continued to wrangle on down the street" [syn: brawl]

  2. herd and care for; "wrangle horses"

Wikipedia
Wrangle

Wrangle or similar can mean:-

  • Wrangle, Lincolnshire, a village in Lincolnshire, England.
  • As an intransitive verb, to bicker, or argue angrily and noisily.
  • As a transitive verb, to herd horses or other livestock.
  • Wrangel Island, a Russian island in the Arctic Ocean.

Usage examples of "wrangle".

Gradually, the French became more and more intransigent and this climaxed in 1292 when the papal throne became vacant and the French and Italian factions in the College of Cardinals cancelled each other out to the extent that they wrangled for two years without reaching agreement: no candidate achieved the required two-thirds majority.

TRUE: Well then, if I make them not wrangle out this case to his no comfort, let me be thought a Jack Daw or La-Foole or anything worse.

While in reality she had never even been able to wrangle the directorship of the Hempnell Student Players and had had to content herself with a minor position in the Speech Department.

And she would gain information of the singular nature of the young of the male sex in listening to the wrangle between Lord Fleetwood and Gower Woodseer on the subject of pocket-money for the needs of the Countess Carinthia.

Obstruct, perplex, distract, intangle, And lay perpetual trains to wrangle.

As the little male threw himself at the alpha, Alacrity wondered how much a night and a day of jostling and wrangling had weakened the contenders, and who had the edge.

Hearty merchants wrangled with their customers, apple-cheeked women in kirtles and wimples, or tall men with colorful liripipe hoods.

You should do a story on all the wrangling over the rezoning of this place.

Koch had finished his virulent and partly comic wrangle with Pasteur, who was just then with prodigious enthusiasm saving the lives of sheep and cattle in France, the discoverer of the tubercle bacillus started sniffing along the trail of one of the most delicate, the most easy to kill, and yet the most terribly savage of all microbes.

The unhappy doctor lost his temper in a confused wrangle and the jury looked at him with dislike and Waler frowned into his brief.

Work on the motorway came to a virtual standstill while the various authorities responsible for the preservation of Guildstead Carbonell and law and order on the one hand wrangled with those responsible for the construction of the motorway and the destruction of the village on the other.

Mingolla wrangled the Cuban sideways and rammed him against the wall, pinning him there.

Tears shed in her sleep cooled on her cheeks, and she discovered she had wrangled her bedding into a tangled wad.

While this curious crew wrangled, Venus stood gazing off into God knew where, covering up with her long tresses.

Antago traveled the twenty miles to Azul Island to spend the day wrangling the wild horses that inhabit that island.