higgle

Probably an alteration of haggle.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɪɡəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡəl

higgle (third-person singular simple present higgles, present participle higgling, simple past and past participle higgled)

1. (archaic) To hawk or peddle provisions.
2. (archaic) To wrangle (over a price, terms of an agreement, etc.); to haggle.
   • 1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], “The Husband. Paris.”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume I, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC, pages 171–172:

     The genius of a people vvhere nothing but the monarchy is ſalique, having ceded this department, vvith ſundry others, totally to the vvomen—by a continual higgling vvith cuſtomers of all ranks and ſizes from morning to night, like ſo many rough pebbles ſhook long together in a bag, by amicable colliſions, they have vvorn dovvn their aſperities and ſharp angles, and not only become round and ſmooth, but vvill receive, ſome of them, a poliſh like a brilliant— […]

   • 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation:

     to truck and higgle for a private good

• haggle, wrangle, chaffer, huckster.

• higgle-haggle
• higgler

• “higgle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.