Verb

(en verb)

To twist one’s body with snakelike motions.

The prisoner managed to squirm out of the straitjacket.

* 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter IV

...around us there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and a seething caldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear and filled only with hunger and with rage. They clambered, squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing us steadily backward, though we emptied our pistols into them.

* 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1

"Throw it away, dear, do," she said, as they got into the road; but Jacob squirmed away from her...

To twist in discomfort, especially from shame or embarrassment.

I recounted the embarrassing story in detail just to watch him squirm .

* 2010 , , Questionable Content 1686: Twist in the Wind

MARIGOLD: Should I tell them I know?

DORA: Nah, let ’em squirm . Let’s go get some pie.

To evade (a question, an interviewer etc).

(figuratively) To move in a slow, irregular motion.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=February 5 , author=Michael Kevin Darling , title=Tottenham 2 - 1 Bolton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The Dutchman then missed a retaken second spot-kick, before the Trotters hit back when Daniel Sturridge's shot squirmed under Heurelho Gomes. }}

Verb

To bite something persistently, especially something tough.

The dog gnawed the bone until it broke in two.

To produce excessive anxiety or worry.

Her comment gnawed at me all day and I couldn't think about anything else.

To corrode; to fret away; to waste.