WRESTLING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Wrestling

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/rˈɛslɪŋ/ /rˈɛsəlɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Wrestle v. t. To wrestle with; to seek to throw down as in wrestling.

Wrestle v. i. (past & past part. wrestled; pres. part. wrestling)

To contend, by grappling with, and striving to trip or throw down, an opponent; as, they wrestled skillfully. "To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well." "Another, by a fall in wrestling, started the end of the clavicle from the sternum."

Hence, to struggle; to strive earnestly; to contend. "Come, wrestle with thy affections." "We wrestle not against flesh and blood." "Difficulties with which he had himself wrestled."

noun

Wrestling n. Act of one who wrestles; specif., the sport consisting of the hand-to-hand combat between two unarmed contestants who seek to throw each other. Note: The various styles of wrestling differ in their definition of a fall and in the governing rules. In Greco-Roman wrestling, tripping and taking hold of the legs are forbidden, and a fall is gained (that is, the bout is won), by the contestant who pins both his opponent's shoulders to the ground. In catch-as-catch-can wrestling, all holds are permitted except such as may be barred by mutual consent, and a fall is defined as in Greco-Roman style. Lancashire style wrestling is essentially the same as catch-as-catch-can. In Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling the contestants stand chest to chest, grasping each other around the body. The one first losing his hold, or touching the ground with any part of his body except his feet, loses the bout. If both fall to the ground at the same time, it is a dogfall, and must be wrestled over. In the Cornwall and Devon wrestling, the wrestlers complete in strong loose linen jackets, catching hold of the jacket, or anywhere above the waist. Two shoulders and one hip, or two hips and one shoulder, must touch the ground to constitute a fall, and if a man is thrown otherwise than on his back the contestants get upon their feet and the bout recommences.

See images of 'Wrestling'

Etymology of 'Wrestling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Wrestling" Quotes from Famous Books

... grand gladiatorial encounters, at wages of forty shillings a week and his meat. As for Mr. Figg himself, who was as good at backsword as at broadsword, at quarter-staff as at foil, and at fisticuffs as any one of them,—to say nothing of his Cornish wrestling,—I saw him once, and shall never forget him. There was a Majesty blazed in his countenance and shone in all his actions beyond all I ever beheld. His right leg bold and firm; and his Left, which could hardly ever be disturbed, gave ...

— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... woman looked at her son. His face was pale and set as with the agony of death. She glanced over the congregation. People sat there wrestling with the greatest problem of their lives, their faces white, their eyes dilated. Others were smiling as if highly amused at the preacher's actions. Members of ritualistic churches, who had come out of curiosity, were frowning contemptuously, ...

— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... and horribly vicious methods of bayonet fighting—the quick thrust and lightning recovery; struggling with me upon a sandy, rain-swept height, he showed me how, in wrestling for your opponent's rifle, the bayonet is the thing. He halted us before devilish contrivances of barbed wire, each different from the other, but each just as ugly. He made us peep through loopholes, each and every different from the other, yet each and every skilfully hidden from an enemy's ...

— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... will rose within him, trained reflexes worked, he summoned all that was left of his draining strength and fought the anesthetic. His wrestling with it was a groping in fog. Again and again he spiraled into unconsciousness and rose strangling. Dimly, through nightmare, he was aware of being carried. Once someone stopped the group in a corridor and asked what was wrong. The answer seemed to come from immensely ...

— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... of dancing bears, and three jack-an-apes dressed like soldiers, a mountebank with an Andrew and a Master Merriman, and such lots of booths with toys, and beads, and ribbons; more cakes and sweetmeats than I could eat in a year; besides a merry-go-round and two flying ships. Then, there will be wrestling and cudgel-playing, foot-ball, jumping in sacks, and dancing on the church-green to the pipe and tabor, and you dance ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

More quotes...