[f. as prec. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb in various senses; an instance of this. Also with away. Occas. fig.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Sqr.’s T., 119. With writhyng of a pyn.
c. 1420. Lydg., Ballad Commend. Our Lady, 96. Ȝif ony offence or writhyng in hem be, Þu art ay redy up-on her woo for to rewe.
c. 1520. Skelton, Magnyf., 136. Yf Lyberte lacked a reyne Where with to rule hym with the wrythyng of a rest.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 241. Let … thy laughter [be] without vnseemely writhing of thy mouth and visage.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 60. A writhing away or turning about of the bodie.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 189. Ill-fauoured gestures, and writhing of their mouth and eyes.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 84. The Writhing [of a tree] is the turning of branches.
1743. Francis, trans. Hor., Odes, I. xxxvii. 34. The Writhings of the wrathful Asp.
1827. Keble, Chr. Year, Wedn. before Easter. The writhings of a wounded heart.
1835. R. M. Bird, Hawks (1856), 134. Sterling … could not trace a single writhing or quivering of limb.
1889. Clark Russell, Marooned, xii. A slow writhing … of the shadowy substance of the brig’s sails, masts, and hull, into determinable forms.
† 2. = WRESTING vbl. sb. 2, WRINGING vbl. sb. 4.
1555. Travers in Strype, Eccl. Mem. (1721), III. App. 87. Without wrythyng, wrastyng, or doubtyng of his promis.
1562. Cooper, Answ. Defence Truth, 78. All the argumentes that you haue brought are nothing but writhinges of extraordinary cases.
1662. Hibbert, Body Divinity, I. 189. What wrything and wringing the Protestants make to shift off this place.
