zigzag
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
zigzag
adv 1: in a zigzag course or on a zigzag path; "birds flew
zigzag across the blue sky"
adj 1: having short sharp turns or angles [syn: {zigzag}, {zig-
zag}]
n 1: an angular shape characterized by sharp turns in
alternating directions [syn: {zigzag}, {zig}, {zag}]
v 1: travel along a zigzag path; "The river zigzags through the
countryside" [syn: {zigzag}, {crank}]
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Zigzag \Zig"zag`\, n. [F. zigzag, G. zickzack, from zacke,
zacken, a dentil, tooth. Cf. {Tack} a small nail.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Something that has short turns or angles.
[1913 Webster]
The fanatics going straight forward and openly, the
politicians by the surer mode of zigzag. --Burke.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Arch.) A molding running in a zigzag line; a chevron, or
series of chevrons. See Illust. of {Chevron}, 3.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Fort.) See {Boyau}.
[1913 Webster]
from
The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)
ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one
carrying the white man's burden. (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an
Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)
He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
So, to com saufly thruh, I been
Constreynet for to doodge betwene.
Munwele
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
212 Moby Thesaurus words for "zigzag":
L, V-shaped, Y-shaped, aberrancy, aberrant, aberration, aberrative,
akimbo, alternate, angle, angle off, angular, apex, avoidance,
avoiding reaction, back and fill, battledore and shuttlecock, bend,
bendy, bent, bias, bifurcate, bifurcation, bight, branch,
branching off, cant, chevron, chevronwise, chevrony, circuitous,
circuitousness, circumvention, coin, come and go, corner, cornered,
crank, crankiness, crankle, crankled, crook, crooked, crookedness,
crotched, crotchet, curve, curvy, declination, defense mechanism,
deflect, deflection, departing, departure, desultory, detour,
deviance, deviancy, deviant, deviate, deviating, deviation,
deviative, deviatory, devious, deviousness, diffract, diffuse,
digression, digressive, discursion, discursive, disperse, distort,
divagation, divarication, diverge, divergence, diversion, divert,
dodge, dogleg, double, drift, drifting, duck, ebb and flow, elbow,
ell, elusion, elusiveness, equivocation, errant, errantry, erratic,
escape, evasion, evasive action, evasiveness, excursion, excursive,
excursus, exorbitation, flexuosity, flexuous, forbearance,
forestalling, forestallment, fork, forked, furcal, furcate,
furcation, geniculate, geniculated, getting around, hairpin,
hitch and hike, hook, hooked, indirect, indirection, inflection,
jagged, jink, knee, knee-shaped, labyrinthine, mazy, meandering,
neutrality, nonintervention, noninvolvement, nook, obliquity,
out-of-the-way, pass and repass, pererration, planetary, point,
pointed, prevention, pull, quoin, rambling, reciprocate, refract,
refraining, ride and tie, roving, saw-toothed, sawtooth, scatter,
seesaw, serpentine, serrate, sharp, sharp-cornered, sheer, shift,
shifting, shifting course, shifting path, shunning, shunting off,
shuttle, shuttlecock, shy, sidestep, sidetracking, skew, slant,
slip, snaky, stagger, staggered, stray, straying, sweep, swerve,
swerving, swing, swinging, switchback, tack, teeter, teeter-totter,
the runaround, to-and-fro, turn, turning, twist, twisting, twisty,
undirected, vagrant, variation, veer, veering, vertex, wandering,
warp, wax and wane, wibble-wabble, wigwag, winding, yaw, zag, zig,
zigzaggery, zigzaggy, zigzagways
[email protected]