haggle

verb

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.

1. 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.”

   “‘I am pretty useless at haggling. Haggling means asking the seller to sell stuff below the asking price.’”

2. To hack (cut crudely)

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

   “I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.”

3. 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.”