finagle
/fɪˈneɪɡ(ə)l
/verb [with object] informal, chiefly US
1Obtain by dishonest or devious means: Ted attended all the football games he could finagle tickets for...
- Two days before the April draft, Donovan finagled her second critical move.
- Large businesses don't care so much about regulation - medium-large ones can eat the cost, supersized ones can finagle the regs so that the rules actually favor them - but small-timers have neither money nor pull.
- By 1985 Heimlich had used his considerable celebrity from developing the Heimlich maneuver for choking to finagle a seat on the American Heart Association's Special Situations Committee.
1.1 [no object] Act in a dishonest or devious manner: they wrangled and finagled over the fine points...
- The answer to the second question appears to be an analyst who is quoted heavily in the report and seems to be the only real source for the fact that Plame somehow finagled to get Wilson the trip.
- Any attempt to finagle with the formula would have ruined the simplicity of its basic premise.
- Considering the Cowboys still have some money to spend - and own two No. 1 picks - the offseason should get better and better as they try to finagle to get back into the playoffs.
Derivatives
finagler
/ noun ...- Please, one otherwise friendly reviewer once pleaded, enough with these ‘creeps, drips, jerks, phonies, fussbudgets, finaglers and fuddy-duddies.’
- In the World of crime there are thieves in the streets and thieves in the suites, there are bank robbers and banks that rob, there are muggers, murderers, polluters, and finaglers - all kinds and all levels of crime.
- With George's cuts, the agency is no match for the corporate finaglers.
Origin
1920s (originally US): from dialect fainaigue 'cheat'; perhaps from Old French fornier 'deny'.