Word.ws English Dictionary

kackle

kackle is the alternative form of keckle.

kackle is the alternative form of cackle.

Meaning of keckle

Verb

keckle (third-person singular simple present keckles, present participle keckling, simple past and past participle keckled)

  1. To wind rope or chains around (a cable etc.) to protect its surface from friction, abrasion, or ice.
    • Large vessels should have twelve or fourteen fathoms of service, half of it rounded and the rest plaited and keckled.1813, Seamanship, Both in Theory and Practice

Meaning of cackle

Noun

cackle (countable and uncountable, plural cackles)

  1. 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 Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 28
  2. A laugh resembling the cry of a hen or goose.
  3. 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
  4. (collective) 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

See all 8 meanings of cackle

Noun

kackle (plural kackles)

  1. A low raspy noise accompanied by head jerks, used to signal appeasement in some species.
    • With mated birds, however, the preening bird was not aggressive and approached the partner with appeasement displays such as Head Jerks, Kackles and ambivalent movements.1977, The Emu
    • Females never revealed their sex during greetings; no females solicited copulations or produced calls other than 'kackles'.1999, Proceedings: Biological sciences, page 546

Verb

kackle (third-person singular simple present kackles, present participle kackling, simple past and past participle kackled)

  1. To make a kackle while jerking the head, signalling appeasement.
    • A bird 'kackling' while alighting may be ignored or greeted in return with weak 'kackles' and headjerks.2012, Joseph Michael Forshaw, Mark Shephard, Grassfinches in Australia, page 167

Forms of kackle

Verb
third-person singular presentkackles
present participlekackling
past participlekackled
pastkackled
Noun
pluralkackles

Questions about kackle

What does kackle mean?
Kackle means a low raspy noise accompanied by head jerks, used to signal appeasement in some species.
What is kackle the alternative form of?
Kackle is the alternative form of keckle.
What part of speech is kackle?
Kackle can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of kackle?
The plural of kackle is kackles.

Words near kackle in the dictionary

  1. Kacie
  2. kack
  3. kack-handed
  4. kacked
  5. kacking
  6. kackle
  7. kackled
  8. kackles
  9. Kackley
  10. Kackleys
  11. kackling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kackle (page history and authors); keckle (page history and authors); cackle (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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Cite this entry: “kackle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kackle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.