A squiggle is a short wavy line that twists about with no regular shape — the kind of line you draw while waiting on the phone, or the loops a child makes before learning to write. The key idea is irregular: a wave drawn neatly is a wavy line, but a squiggle wanders. People use it in three common ways. For drawing and decoration: a squiggle of icing on a cake, a pattern of squiggles on a shirt. For handwriting you cannot read: his signature is just a squiggle. And for symbols and marks you do not know the name of — accents, mathematical signs, characters in an unfamiliar script — where speakers fall back on that little squiggle over the n. That last use can sound dismissive, so be careful using it about someone's writing system. It is also a verb: the line squiggled across the page, or she squiggled her name at the bottom. Informal but perfectly ordinary in speech.