different between squirm vs squirming

English

First recorded late 17th c.; uncertain origin. Perhaps imitative or related to worm (in the sense of writhing movement) or swarm.

squirm (third-person singular simple present squirms, present participle squirming, simple past and past participle squirmed)

To twist one's body with snakelike motions.
The prisoner managed to squirm out of the straitjacket.
- 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV
  […] around us there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and a seething caldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear and filled only with hunger and with rage. They clambered, squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing us steadily backward, though we emptied our pistols into them.
- 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1
  "Throw it away, dear, do," she said, as they got into the road; but Jacob squirmed away from her […]
Synonyms: writhe, wriggle
To twist in discomfort, especially from shame or embarrassment.
I recounted the embarrassing story in detail just to watch him squirm.
- 2010, Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content 1686: Twist in the Wind
  MARIGOLD: Should I tell them I know?
  DORA: Nah, let ’em squirm. Let’s go get some pie.
Synonym: fidget
To evade a question, an interviewer etc. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

squirm (plural squirms)

squirming

squirming (plural squirmings)

The motion of something that squirms.
- 1927, Harper's Magazine: Volume 155
  these squirmings of the newborn

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