Oh what a joy it is to browse through the online OED!

Here’s an interesting one. The verb wangle - “To accomplish (something) in an irregular way by scheming or contrivance; to bring about or obtain by indirect or insidious means (something not obtainable openly); to manipulate, ‘fake’ (an account, report, prices).” - comes originally from printing.

First recorded, as printers’ slang, in 1888; current among soldiers in the war of 1914-1918, and hence in general colloquial use. There is no evidence of any connexion with the northerly dialect word WANGLE v.1 Probably, like many other slang words, it was formed involuntarily, under the influence of an obscure sense of phonetic symbolism; the suggestion may have come from waggle, v.

First cite: 1888 JACOBI Printers’ Vocab., Wangle, a slang term used by printers to express arranging or ‘faking’ matters to one’s own satisfaction or convenience.

BTW is the term used much in the US? I notice that most if not all the cites are British.

It’s familiar to me, and I never thought of it as particularly British.

Edit: The Saturday Review, source of the 1922 cite, was a US magazine.

I’m British and I use it all the time (but wasn’t aware of it being from printing which is the job I’m in)