Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small furrow, ridge, or crease on a normally smooth surface, caused by crumpling, folding, or shrinking.
- n. A line or crease in the skin, as from age.
- n. A clever trick, method, or device, especially one that is new and different.
- n. A problem or imperfection; a fault: The report had to be revised because of a few wrinkles.
- v. To make wrinkles or a wrinkle in.
- v. To draw up into wrinkles; pucker: wrinkled her nose in disdain.
- v. To form wrinkles.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A slight ridge in or raised line on a surface caused by contraction, folding, puckering, or rumpling; a line of corrugation, generally one of a series, either regularly or irregularly disposed; a crease: as, wrinkles in a garment, or in an old man's face; wrinkles (small corrugations) in a rock.
- To form wrinkles in: contract, fold, or pucker into small ridges and furrows or creases; corrugate; crease.
- To become contracted into wrinkles; shrink into furrows and ridges; be marked with wrinkles.
- n. A short pithy piece of information or advice; a valuable hint; a bit of useful knowledge or instruction; a good idea; a trick; a point; a notion; a device.
Wiktionary
- n. A small furrow, ridge or crease in an otherwise smooth surface.
- n. A line or crease in the skin, especially when caused by age or fatigue.
- n. A fault, imperfection or bug especially in a new system or product; typically, they will need to be ironed out.
- v. transitive To make wrinkles in; to cause to have wrinkles.
- v. intransitive To pucker or become uneven or irregular.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Local, U. S. A winkle.
- n. A small ridge, prominence, or furrow formed by the shrinking or contraction of any smooth substance; a corrugation; a crease; a slight fold
- n. hence, any roughness; unevenness.
- n. colloq. A notion or fancy; a whim.
- v. To contract into furrows and prominences; to make a wrinkle or wrinkles in; to corrugate.
- v. Hence, to make rough or uneven in any way.
- v. To shrink into furrows and ridges.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become wrinkled or crumpled or creased
- n. a slight depression in the smoothness of a surface
- v. make wrinkled or creased
- n. a minor difficulty
- v. make wrinkles or creases on a smooth surface; make a pressed, folded or wrinkled line in
- v. gather or contract into wrinkles or folds; pucker.
- n. a clever method of doing something (especially something new and different)
Etymologies
- Probably from stem of Old English gewrinclod. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, back-formation from wrinkled, wrinkled, probably from Old English gewrinclod, past participle of gewrinclian, to wind, crease; see wer-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.”
A real American : I received this in an e-mail, tell me what you think.
“One extra wrinkle is that some loan officers are good at teasing out the details of a borrower's credit history and finding those that have bad pasts but good futures.”
Subprime Mortgage Loans, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“One wrinkle is that agencies often don't own up to the costs of their rules, so REINS should also hold for rules that a member designates as particularly controversial, not just "major" ones.”
“The wrinkle is that airlines are now required to have contingency plans on file for how they will deal with long tarmac delays at large and medium hub airports.”
“Another wrinkle is that a large first class economic city is a big draw for ambitious folks, even if the average economic situation of a UKer were weaker than the average situation of a Dane (I'm not claiming it is).”
The Immigration Indicator, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“The only wrinkle is that the House proposes to do this pursuant to a “rule” whereby a single vote will determine the passage of both X andY.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » “It May Be Clever, but It Is Not Constitutional”
“A cool wrinkle is you can check your Wii Age at any time with the Wii Fit Channel.”
“The one wrinkle is that, as one of my fellow CFP attendees put it, we are now a lot like medieval demons: Speak our names, and we appear.”
“As soon as a joint or wrinkle is detected the Pryder stops and squats and turns on full adhesion.”
Take That, You Alpha Centaurian Swine! « Official Harry Harrison News Blog
“Another potential wrinkle is star Benicio Del Toro.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wrinkle’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
-
Pickle and such
Words that end like pickle. Listed here because they're funny (because they end like pickle).
pickle, sparkle, yokel, tinkle, fickle, prickle, trickle, circle, snorkel, ensnorkel, chuckle, buckle and 137 more...
-
Starts with a silent letter
...with grateful thanks to telofy (for "cnidarian"), and to the song "Crazy ABC's" by Barenaked Ladies.
cnidarian, mnemonic, chthonic, ptarmigan, psoriasis, psittacine, bdellium, aisle, czar, gnarly, gnat, gnaw and 82 more...
-
cotton
Cotton is a blended word with rich flavor. One meaning root is from the semitic root qtn that means to 'become thin or fine'; and the other meaning is from Welsh cytun or cytun that means to ' agr...
cotton, hosanna, Seneca, crab, hock, bow, bark, carousal, limber, rash, beguine, kennel and 26 more...
-
VNCle
N stands for 'nasal', not 'n'
pimple, bungle, spindle, handle, amble, humble, simple, dimple, winkle, tinkle, single, dingle and 53 more...
-
wingblossom's Words
flicker, wrinkle, solipsism, tea, aurora, lilt, burnt, crescent, gale, pocket, ephemeral, candied and 136 more...
-
strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
-
SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
-
colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
-
theastic's Words
cellar, stalemate, wrought, opal, tyrant, squelch, squab, linen, tartan, paisley, scope, siren and 395 more...
-
Mary and Max (2009)
Words from 2009 'Mary and Max' film.
muddy, puddle, birthmark, piggyback, pensive, gumnut, pompom, salvage, takeaway, oven, shed, deliberate and 112 more...
-
stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
-
Hilary's List
Just a list of words I like
wellspring, mystery, wonderment, intrinsic, artisan, enchantment, magic, transience, incomplete, impermanent, imperfect, resonance and 163 more...
-
The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
-
The List Of Words That Rewrote The Hi...
Ah, yeah, this is a list of words that I think sound pretty funny... or dumb, either way, I like 'em so, yeah.
flabergasted, smash, wang, wordie, drum, rumplestiltskin, resistance, watt, hindu, universal serial bus, bearing, nematode and 138 more...
-
ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wrinkle.

fbharjo a crease or a pithy piece of information
decrease and increase? Feb 8, 2013