Word.ws English Dictionary

cackle-bladder

/ˈkækəlˌblædə(ɹ)/

cackle-bladder noun: a bladder containing (real or fake) blood, used to fake someone's death or injury, as in espionage or confidence tricks where a person is made to think that he is an accessory to murder.

Noun

cackle-bladder (plural cackle-bladders)

  1. A bladder containing (real or fake) blood, used to fake someone's death or injury, as in espionage or confidence tricks where a person is made to think that he is an accessory to murder.
    • It tells you how they work on the mark's own larcenous cravings for a killing, how they build him up to betting his entire stake — and then "put the chill on" via the "cackle bladder" routine, a prop murder, so named because originally the "corpse" bit on a chicken bladder and drenched himself in...1951 June 16, Racket Squad (television review), in The Billboard, page 8
    • Use a cackle bladder to bite on and spit blood whether faced with a gang or a single assailant. This is often enough to dissuade would-be aggressors […].1975, Anthony Greenbank, Survival in the City, page 198

Forms of cackle-bladder

pluralcackle-bladders
alternative formcackle bladder

Origin of cackle-bladder

From cackle + bladder, because originally chicken blood was used.

Questions about cackle-bladder

What does cackle-bladder mean?
Cackle-bladder means a bladder containing (real or fake) blood, used to fake someone's death or injury, as in espionage or confidence tricks where a person is made to think that he is an accessory to murder.
What part of speech is cackle-bladder?
Cackle-bladder is a noun.
How do you pronounce cackle-bladder?
Cackle-bladder is pronounced /ˈkækəlˌblædə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of cackle-bladder?
The plural of cackle-bladder is cackle-bladders.

Words near cackle-bladder in the dictionary

  1. cacking up
  2. cackle
  3. cackle bladder
  4. cackle bladders
  5. cackle fruit
  6. cackle-bladder
  7. cackle-bladders
  8. cackle-fart
  9. cackle-farts
  10. cackleberries
  11. cackleberry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cackle-bladder (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: en-au-cackle-bladder.ogg.

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