cackle
/ˈkækəl/
cackle noun: the cry of a hen or goose, especially when laying an egg.
Noun
cackle (countable and uncountable, plural cackles)
- The cry of a hen or goose, especially when laying an egg.
- I heard a grey hen cackling among the ling; I called and thought, "If I could get a sight of you now, it would be your last cackle;" just then I heard something moving behind me on the path.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 28
- A laugh resembling the cry of a hen or goose.
- Futile or excessively noisy talk.
- There's no time to waste on silly cackle.1930, Frank Richards, The Magnet: All Quiet on the Greyfriars Front
- A group of hyenas.
- A cackle of hyenas might take on one male lion, but two is one too many.2021, Brent Henderson, The Roar Within: Unleashing the Powerful Truth of Who You Really Are, Baker Publishing Group
- A single male lion facing a cackle of hyenas may feel dominant enough to choose to fight them.2025, Tom Dillon, Agile Resilience: The Psychology of Developing Resilience in the Workplace, Taylor & Francis
Verb
cackle (third-person singular simple present cackles, present participle cackling, simple past and past participle cackled)
- To make a sharp, broken noise or cry, as a hen or goose does.
- When every goose is cackling.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- I heard a grey hen cackling among the ling; I called and thought, "If I could get a sight of you now, it would be your last cackle;" just then I heard something moving behind me on the path.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 28
- To laugh with a broken sound similar to a hen's cry.
- The witch cackled evilly.
- She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- To talk in a silly manner; to prattle.
- It is also the business of a sensible government, not to cackle on its discoveries1860, P. Thomspon, Audi Alteration[???]
- To pretend to rattle (dice) in one's hand while gripping them so that they maintain their orientation.
- Danny cackled the dice furiously in his cupped hand, then rolled them so they stopped inches from Slattery's hands. The result was the same as before – a seven.1941, Mignon Good Eberhart, The Third Mystery Book: Six Short Mysteries, page 120
- […] they spun all right, or so it seemed, and hit the wall all right, or so it seemed, but bottom line was this: The stirring of the dice was merely cackling, the cubes artfully framed so that the spots in the kid's fists showed 4‐4 up‐right and weren't really rattled but rather, held in control by...2015, Jack Engelhard, The Prince of Dice, page 11
cackle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
cackle in Tamil
- கொக்கரிப்பு, கோழி அல்லது வாத்தின் கொக்கரிப்பு, பொருளற்ற பேச்சு, வீம்புமொழி, வெற்று நகைப்பு, கொக்கரி
cackle in Urdu
- بک بک, بڑبڑ, گپ شپ, کڑ کڑ, بک بک کرنا, بڑبڑانا
cackle in Malayalam
- cackle
- കാറുക kāṟuka
cackle in Kannada
- ಕೀರು, ಚೀರು, ಕೊಕ್ಕೊಕ್ ಎನ್ನು
Examples of cackle in a sentence
- A cackle of hyenas had her surrounded, enticed by the smell of her just-given birth.2004, Gregory Townes, The Tribe, Black Print Pub., page 6:
- Her mother's personal assistant -- the youngest hyena in the cackle2019, C. S. E. Cooney, Desdemona and the Deep, Tordotcom:
Forms of cackle
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cackles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cackles |
| present participle | cackling |
| past participle | cackled |
| past | cackled |
Origin of cackle
From Middle English caclen, cakelen, perhaps from Old English *caclian, *cacolian, from Proto-West Germanic *kakulōn, *kakilōn (“to cackle, gaggle, yelp, snarl”), perhaps of imitative origin. By surface analysis, cack + -le. Compare Dutch kakelen (“to cackle”), German Low German kakeln (“to cackle”), German kakeln (“to blather”), Danish kagle (“to cackle”), Swedish kackla (“to cackle”). Compare also Old English cahhetan, ċeahhettan (“to laugh loudly; cackle”), German gackern (“to cackle”).
Words formed from cackle
Phrases with cackle
Words that rhyme with cackle
Questions about cackle
- What does cackle mean?
- Cackle means the cry of a hen or goose, especially when laying an egg.
- What is cackle in Tamil?
- Cackle in Tamil is கொக்கரிப்பு, கோழி அல்லது வாத்தின் கொக்கரிப்பு, பொருளற்ற பேச்சு. See Cackle meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use cackle in a sentence?
- A cackle of hyenas had her surrounded, enticed by the smell of her just-given birth.
- What part of speech is cackle?
- Cackle can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce cackle?
- Cackle is pronounced /ˈkækəl/.
- What is the plural of cackle?
- The plural of cackle is cackles.
Words near cackle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cackle (page history and authors); cackle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cackle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കാറുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); cackle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cackle.wav.
Cite this entry: “cackle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cackle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.