Wobblies


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wob·bly

 (wŏb′lē)
adj. wob·bli·er, wob·bli·est
Tending to wobble; unsteady.

wob′bli·ness n.

Wob·bly

 (wŏb′lē)
n. pl. Wob·blies
A member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a chiefly US labor organization dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism, active especially in the early 1900s.

[From I Wobbly Wobbly, humorous alteration of I(ndustrial) W(orkers of the) W(orld).]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Wobblies

A nickname for the IWW.
Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited
References in periodicals archive ?
With the election imminent he reflects: 'The only remaining question is how many freaks, heads, criminals, anarchists, beatniks, poachers, wobblies, bikers and persons of weird persuasion will come out of their holes and vote for me.'
The "wobblies," as they were known, were the hobos' union.
Its highest ever level was 6,179 at the end of trading on July 20 before world stock markets got a bad attack of the wobblies.
The systematic, often brutal, repression by policemen, vigilantes and judges of the free speech rights of the Wobblies was not very different from the way the law dealt with other political and labor radicals during the forgotten years.
But when it came to kissing his latest screen lover, he got the wobblies. His new "leading lady" was Kevin Kline!
Members of the radical Industrial Workers of the World, so called Wobblies, faced imprisonment, beatings, and even deportation for espousing "unpatriotic" causes.
One of the vicious effects of the "separation of labor" [a term we borrowed from the Wobblies to describe narrow trade unionism] has been its separation of worker-as-worker from worker-as-citizen, as human being, as member of the human family and resident of the global ecosphere.
BRITAIN'S controversial cycling boss has sensationally resigned amid claims he called disabled athletes "wobblies" and "gimps".
Government repression of Socialists and Wobblies, abetted by Gompers, was necessary due to the popularity of their positions.
Wobblies!; a graphic history of the Industrial Workers of the World.
The Duke of Windsor was known to faint when exposed to his father's wobblies. But conditioned to rely on letters for communication - even with the advent of the telephone - Georgie remained non-verbal (except with his children) for the rest of his life.
Ordinary Socialists, Communists, even Wobblies (one of Lynd's favorite examples), as well as feminists, civil rights activists and New Leftists have often craved powerful and charismatic leaders to represent them, or simply wanted any leadership that could get past incessant internal squabbles.