haggle

English

WOTD – 25 September 2010

Etymology

1570s, "to cut unevenly" (implied in haggler), frequentative of Middle English haggen (“to chop”), variant of hacken (“to hack”), equivalent to hack +‎ -le. Sense of "argue about price" first recorded c.1600, probably from notion of chopping away.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈhæɡəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

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• Rhymes: -æɡəl

Verb

haggle (third-person singular simple present haggles, present participle haggling, simple past and past participle haggled)

1. (intransitive) To argue for a better deal, especially over prices with a seller.
   • 2020, Abi Daré, The Girl With The Louding Voice, Sceptre, page 184:

     ‘I am pretty useless at haggling. Haggling means asking the seller to sell stuff below the asking price.’

   I haggled for a better price because the original price was too high.

2. (transitive) To hack (cut crudely)
   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi]:

     Suffolk first died, and York, all haggled o'er, / Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped.

   • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:

     I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.

3. To stick at small matters; to chaffer; to higgle.
   • June 30, 1784, Horace Walpole, letter to the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway

     Royalty and science never haggled about the value of blood.

Synonyms

• (to argue for a better deal): wrangle

Derived terms

• haggler
• higgle-haggle

Translations

to argue for a better deal

• Arabic: سَاوَمَ (sāwama)
• Armenian: սակարկել (hy) (sakarkel)
• Belarusian: таргавацца impf (tarhavacca)
• Bulgarian: пазаря се (pazarja se)
• Catalan: regatejar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 殺價／杀价 (saat³ gaa³)

  Mandarin: 討價還價／讨价还价 (zh) (tǎojià-huánjià), 計較／计较 (zh) (jìjiào)

• Czech: smlouvat, handrkovat se, dohadovat se impf
• Danish: prutte (da), købslå
• Dutch: afdingen (nl)
• Esperanto: marĉandi (eo)
• Estonian: tingima
• Finnish: tinkiä (fi)
• French: marchander (fr)
• Galician: regatear (gl), relear (gl)
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: feilschen (de), (dated) markten (de), schachern (de)
• Greek: διαπραγματεύομαι (el) (diapragmatévomai), (colloquial) παζαρεύω (el) (pazarévo)
• Hungarian: alkudozik (hu)
• Icelandic: prútta
• Indonesian: tawar (id)
• Ingrian: tinkiä, tiukata
• Italian: contrattare (it), tirare sul prezzo, mercanteggiare (it)
• Japanese: 値切る (ねぎる, negiru), 〔値段などで〕押し問答する ([nedan nado de] oshimondou suru)
• Khmer: ដេញថ្លៃ (dəɲ tlay)
• Korean: 깎다 (ko) (kkakda)
• Lao: ຕໍ່ (tǭ)
• Macedonian: се ценка (se cenka)
• Malay: tawar-menawar
• Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian: prute (no)
• Persian: چانه زدن (fa) (čâne zadan)
• Polish: targować się (pl)
• Portuguese: pechinchar (pt), regatear (pt), barganhar (pt)
• Romanian: tocmi (ro), negocia (ro), târgui (ro), neguța (ro), țigăni (ro)
• Russian: торгова́ться (ru) (torgovátʹsja)
• Serbo-Croatian: cjenkati (sh)
• Slovene: barantati impf
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: wikowaś

  Upper Sorbian: wikować (hsb)

• Spanish: regatear (es), recatear (es)
• Swedish: pruta (sv), köpslå (sv)
• Tamil: please add this translation if you can
• Thai: ต่อรอง (th) (dtòr rong)
• Turkish: pazarlık etmek (tr), pazarlık yapmak
• Ukrainian: торгува́тися impf (torhuvátysja)
• Vietnamese: mặc cả (vi)
• Wolof: waxaale (wo)

to stick at small matters

• Bulgarian: насичам (bg) (nasičam)
• French: chipoter (fr)
• Lithuanian: leistis į smulkmenas
• Spanish: detener en pequeñeces (pronominal)

See also

• bargain
• negotiate