squirm
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To twist one's body with snakelike motions.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
skwurmIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈskwɝm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To twist one's body with snakelike motions.
intransitive
To twist in discomfort, especially from shame or embarrassment.
To evade a question, an interviewer etc.
noun
A twisting, snakelike movement of the body.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To twist one's body with snakelike motions.
Used this way, squirm is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.