▪ I. haggle, v.
(ˈhæg(ə)l)
Also 6–7 hagle.
[In sense 1, freq. of hag v.1 (cf. hackle v.1); the other senses may possibly have originated from this, though it is not clear that they did. Cf. higgle.]
I. 1. trans. To mangle with repeated irregular cuts or cutting blows; to cut clumsily, with uneven jagged edges; to hack, mangle, mutilate.
| 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, iv. vi. 11 Suffolke first dyed, and Yorke all hagled ouer Comes to him, where in gore he lay..kisses the gashes That bloodily did yawne vpon his face. 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia iv. (1629) 145 They not only slew him and his family, but butcher-like hagled their bodies. 1806–7 J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) x. lii, Haggling the nails of your right hand with a pair of blunt scissors held in the left. 1884 Roe Nat. Ser. Story vi, That was a good clean cut..I dislike to see a tree haggled down. |
| fig. 1760 Lloyd The Actor Wks. I. 14 Your fool..Who murders what the Poet finely writ, And like a bungler haggles all his wit. |
b. intr. To make rough or clumsy cuts; to hack.
| 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) I. 296 For fear any little motion..should bend our instrument, and make us haggle or cut awry. 1804 Man in the Moon xvii. 131 She haggles at a wing, until it flies off into the plate of one of the astonished guests. |
II. 2. intr. To cavil, wrangle, dispute as to terms; esp. to make difficulties in coming to terms or in settling a bargain; to stickle.
| 1602 [implied in haggler 2 and 3]. 1611 Cotgr., Barguigner..to wrangle, dodge, haggle. 1722 De Foe Moll Flanders (1840) 22 To bid a shilling more, and haggle with them. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. xlii, There were two points on which he haggled. 1853 C. Kingsley Hypatia xxi, I recollect well how I used to haggle at that story of the cursing of the fig-tree. 1886 Stubbs Lect. Med. & Mod. Hist. xii. 278 The King now haggled about the præmunire. |
3. trans. To weary or harass with haggling.
| 1648 Cromwell Let. 20 Aug. in Carlyle, We are so harassed and haggled out in this business. a 1797 H. Walpole Mem. Geo. II (1847) II. xi. 359 Moore, and one or two others, were neither awed nor haggled with their inquisitors. 1825 R. P. Ward Tremaine II. xxiii. 218 ‘Old Mr. Barnabus is quoit haggled with it.’ |
III. 4. intr. To advance with difficulty and obstruction: cf. haggler 1. (Sc. also haigle.)
| 1583 Stanyhurst æneis iii. (Arb.) 91 The giaunt, with his hole flock lowbylyke hagling. Ibid., Conceites (Arb.) 136 Wheare the great hulck floated, theare now thee cart⁓wheele is hagling. 1871 Carlyle in Mrs. Carlyle's Lett. II. 36 A Third Edition got done..Printing haggles forward till October. |
Hence haggled, ˈhaggling ppl. adjs.
| c 1589 Theses Martinianæ 30 Suffer no more of these haggling and profane pamphlets to be published against Martin. 1834 M. Scott Cruise Midge (1863) 36 The stumps of the haggled brushwood where it had been cleared by the hatchet. 1840 Thackeray Paris Sk.-bk. (1872) 4 The insolence of haggling porters. 1894 Crockett Raiders (ed. 3) 133 There is a pile of haggled heads by thee. |
▪ II. haggle, n.
[f. haggle v.]
The action of haggling; wrangling or dispute about terms.
| 1858 R. S. Surtees Ask Mamma xliv. 195 In dealing, a small farmer is never happy without a haggle. 1865 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. xiii. v. V. 55 In the detail of executing, it was liable to haggles. 1865 Kingsley Herew. xiii, Then the usual haggle began between them. |
▪ III. haggle
dial. var. of hail n.1 and v.1