giggle
/ˈɡɪɡl̩/verb, noun
giggle is a verb meaning “To laugh gently in a playful, nervous, or affected manner” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-I-G-G-L-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears 2.2 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does giggle mean?
verb
- 1
To laugh gently in a playful, nervous, or affected manner.
The jokes had them giggling like little girls all evening.
noun
- 1
A high-pitched, silly laugh.
- 2
informalFun; an amusing episode.
We put itching powder down his shirt for giggles.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce giggle?
- /ˈɡɪɡl̩/
Giggle has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-giggle.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of giggle
- giggles present, singular, he/she/it, plural
- giggling participle, present
- giggled participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is giggle?
Giggle appears 2.2 times per million words in written English, the 18,297th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Giggle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense laugh:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | glousser, ricaner, gloussement |
| German | kichern, Gekicher |
| Portuguese | dar risadinhas, risadinha |
| Spanish | reír[se] tontamente, soltar risitas, risita |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does giggle come from?
Early 16th century, probably of imitative origin. Or, perhaps a frequentative based on dialectal English gig (“to creak”), from Middle English gigen (“to make a creaking sound”) + -le; or perhaps of Dutch or Low German origin: compare Saterland Frisian güüchelje (“to giggle”), West Frisian giechelje (“to giggle”), Dutch giechelen (“to giggle”), German Low German giecheln (“to giggle”), dialectal German giggln, gigglen (“to giggle”), German gickeln (“to giggle”). All of these words are likely onomatopoeic as well. Also compare Alemannic German Guege (“fiddle”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).