haggle

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   wrangle (over a price, terms of an agreement, etc.)

   Let's not haggle over a few dollars

2. 2
   verb

   To argue for a better deal, especially over prices with a seller.

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

3. 3
   verb

   To hack (cut crudely)

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

4. 4
   verb

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   an instance of intense argument (as in bargaining)

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.