Word.ws English Dictionary

mangle

Syllables: man·gle/ˈmæŋ.ɡ(ə)l/

mangle verb: to change, mutilate, or disfigure by cutting, tearing, rearranging, etc.

mangle: to change, mutilate, or disfigure by cutting, tearing, rearranging, etc
Image: Birdseed, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb (1)

mangle (third-person singular simple present mangles, present participle mangling, simple past and past participle mangled)

  1. (transitive) To change, mutilate, or disfigure by cutting, tearing, rearranging, etc.
    • mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    • when they are disposed to mangle a play or a novelc. 1703-20, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Very Young Lady on Her Marriage
  2. (transitive) To modify (an identifier from source code) so as to produce a unique identifier for internal use by the compiler, etc.

Noun (1)

mangle (plural mangles)

  1. A hand-operated device with rollers, for wringing laundry.
    Synonyms:
    mangler
  2. The mangle attached to wringer washing machines, often called the wringer.
    • There was a bright-red plastic baby-bath, a car tyre, a rusty mangle, and something that looked like a primitive version of a washing machine.1993, John Banville, Ghosts

Verb (2)

mangle (third-person singular simple present mangles, present participle mangling, simple past and past participle mangled)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To wring laundry.

Noun (2)

mangle (plural mangles)

  1. (Caribbean, US) Any of various trees of the genus Rhizophora, especially the red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle).
  2. (Caribbean, US) A forest of such trees.
  3. (Caribbean, US) Preceded by a descriptive word: any of various shrubs or trees of genera other than Rhizophora which resemble plants of this genus in appearance and habitat.

Proper noun capitalized: Mangle

Mangle

  1. A surname.

mangle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

mangle in Tamil

அழி, சின்னா பின்னமாய்ச் சிதை

mangle in Urdu

استری مشین, کل دار استری, دھجی دھجی کرنا, مسخ کرنا, پھاڑنا, قیمہ کرنا

mangle in Bengali

পিষে ফেলা, বিকৃত করা, ছিঁড়ে ফেলা

mangle in Malayalam

disfigure, mutilate, maim
കൊത്തിച്ചതയ്ക്കുക, കൊത്തിത്തറയ്ക്കുക, അംഗച്ഛേദം ചെയ്ക, വികൃതമാക്കുക, വിരൂപമാക്കുക, നുറുക്കുക
ruin, spoil, mar
കോലം കെടുത്തുക, നശിപ്പിക്കുക, വഷളാക്കുക, ചീത്തയാക്കുക, താറുമാറാക്കുക, ദുഷിപ്പിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
mangle in Kannada
ಕೊಚ್ಚಿಹಾಕು, ಕಚ್ಚಿಹಾಕು, ಕೆಡಿಸು, ಚಪ್ಪಟೆಮಾಡು

Synonyms of mangle

Forms of mangle

Verb
third-person singular presentmangles
present participlemangling
past participlemangled
pastmangled
Noun
pluralmangles

Past tense of mangle: mangled

Origin of mangle

From Middle English mangelen, manglen, from Anglo-Norman mangler, mahangler, frequentative of either Old French mangonner (“to cut to pieces”) or mahaigner (“to mutilate”), of Germanic origin, for which see mayhem. Alternate etymology derives mangle from Middle English *mankelen, a frequentative form of manken (“to mutilate”), from Old English *mancian, bemancian (“to maim”). More at mank.

Ca. 1700, from Dutch mangel, from Early Modern German Mangel (15th c.), enhanced form (by analogy with other tool names in -el) of Middle High German mange, from Medieval Latin manga, manganum, from Ancient Greek μάγγανον (mánganon). Doublet of mangonel.

Borrowed from Spanish mangle, mangue, probably from an Arawak language (such as Taíno), or a Cariban language.

Words formed from mangle

Phrases with mangle

Words that rhyme with mangle

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mangle

What does mangle mean?
Mangle means to change, mutilate, or disfigure by cutting, tearing, rearranging, etc.
What is mangle in Tamil?
Mangle in Tamil is அழி, சின்னா பின்னமாய்ச் சிதை. See Mangle meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is mangle?
Mangle can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mangle?
Mangle is pronounced /ˈmæŋ.ɡ(ə)l/.
What is the past tense of mangle?
The past tense of mangle is mangled.

Words near mangle in the dictionary

  1. Mangione
  2. Mangiones
  3. Mangkali
  4. mangkono
  5. Manglay
  6. mangle
  7. mangle-wurzel
  8. mangle-wurzels
  9. mangled
  10. mangleman
  11. manglemen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mangle (page history and authors); Mangle (page history and authors); mangle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mangle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Mangle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mangle (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); mangle (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-mangle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “mangle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mangle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.