The verb 'wrangle' entered English in the late 14th century from the Low German 'wrangen', which carried the sense of 'to struggle' or 'to wrestle'. This Germanic root is likely imitative in origin, echoing the sounds and physical strain of a struggle. The meaning evolved from physical grappling to denote a noisy, contentious argument, capturing the figurative wrestling of words. The specialized North American sense, to herd or manage livestock, emerged in the late 19th century, extending the core idea of struggling to control something unruly.

The word 'wrangle' is a simplex word of Germanic origin. It is not productively formed from separable modern English morphemes. Its core component is the Low German root 'wrangen', meaning 'to struggle' or 'to wrestle'.