wringer

English

Etymology

From Middle English wringere, equivalent to wring +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪŋə(ɹ)/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪŋə(ɹ)

Noun

wringer (plural wringers)

1. One who wrings.
   • 2000, Marlene Evans, Redbirds and Rubies and Rainbows, page 33:

     We wringers of hands don't really want a step to take! We want to continue our hand-wringing and feel hostile toward anyone who acts as if there's something simple to do about any problem.

2. A device for drying laundry consisting of two rollers between which the wet laundry is squeezed (or wrung); a mangle.
3. (figurative) Something that causes pain, hardship, or exertion; an ordeal.
   • 2023 September 24, HarryBlank, “Working Wonders”, in SCP Foundation‎^[1], archived from the original on 25 May 2024:

     Reynders brushed a messy lock of orange hair out of her eyes for the dozenth time. Her body didn't change in the ADDC, actively resisted and eventually reverted any changes being consciously made to it, but in her constant state of nervous paranoia she was doing a bang-up job of making herself look like she'd been through several sequential wringers. "I know there's a better way to describe this, but it's very hard to focus. Bear with it. I hate being like this a lot more than you hate hearing it, trust me."

Derived terms

• get one's tits in a wringer
• put through the wringer

Translations

one who wrings

• Finnish: vääntäjä (fi), vääntelijä

device for drying laundry

• Finnish: mankeli (fi)

figuratively: something that causes pain, hardship, or exertion

• Finnish: mankeli (fi)