[f. prec. Cf. F. zigzaguer.]
1. intr. To go or move in a zigzag course; to have a zigzag course or direction. Also quasi-trans., to zigzag it, to zigzag one’s way.
1787. Burns, Lett. to J. Richmond, 7 July. His horse … zig-zagged across before my old spavined hunter.
1792. T. Twining, in Recr. & Stud. (1882), 163. We … zigzagged up to the very top.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, XVIII. Miseries Trav., xix. The surprising range of rocks, zigzagging away in all directions.
1812. Colman, Br. Grins, Lady of Wreck, II. xxvi. He had zigzagged many a league.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., ii. He managed to … zigzag down Kennington reach … with much labour.
1897. Jacobs, Skipper’s Wooing, iii. He … zigzagged his way back to the ship.
fig. [1787. Burns, Lett. to Earl Buchan, Feb. While I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across of the path.]
1825. Southey, in Corr. w. C. Bowles (1881), 78. Not following the natural course of thought and feeling,… but zig-zagging after the rhyme.
1825. Hor. Smith, Gaieties & Grav., II. 245. The red and black had zig-zagged, or won alternately for fourteen times.
1901. G. Douglas, House with Gr. Shut., xxiii. His courage zigzagged,… one moment he towered in imagination, the next he grovelled in fear.
2. trans. To give a zigzag form to; to trace a zigzag line upon. Chiefly in pa. pple.; see also ZIGZAGGED a.
1777. Pennant, Brit. Zool. (ed. 4), IV. 98. White zigzagged with ferruginous edges crenulated.
1872. Howells, Wedd. Journ., iii. The breast of the black cloud was now zigzagged … by lightning.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner., 65. Its lateral margin … toothed and zigzagged by the outgrowth of conically elongated cells.
3. To cause to move in a zigzag direction; refl. = 1.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstrel, I. 115. I oft zigzag me round Thy uneven, heathy ground.
1889. Gretton, Mem. Harkb., 49. To see him zigzag his large body through the mob from the vestry to the pulpit.
Hence Zigzagging vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1827. Southey, Lett. to Mrs. Hughes, 31 Dec. The zigzaging which it would be necessary to make in stage-coaches.
1861. E. T. Holland, in Peaks, Passes, etc., Ser. II. (1862), I. 85. We … climbed a steep zigzagging ascent up the ridge.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 14. One of these zigzagging blurs [sc. humming birds] came purring toward me.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., viii. These zigzagging minds.
1893. Athenæum, 15 July, 90/1. The irritating task of zigzagging through her volumes.
