Word.ws English Dictionary

mauled

mauled is the simple past and past participle of maul.

Meaning of maul

Verb

maul (third-person singular simple present mauls, present participle mauling, simple past and past participle mauled)

  1. To handle someone or something in a rough way.
    Synonyms:
    abuse, mishandle, misuse
  2. (usually) To savage; to cause serious physical wounds.
    • The bear mauled him in a terrible way.
    Synonyms:
    harm, wound, abuse, annoy, bewound, damage, damnify, dere, do damage to, do for
  3. (figuratively) To criticise harshly.
    • The latest film by the Cohen brothers was mauled by the press, and was a box-office flop to boot.
  4. (transitive) To beat with a maul.
  5. (slang) To play rough, to fondle intensively.
    • 28 year old big, burly, bearded grizzly looking for other bears to maul me! Facial/body hair, brains a plus!1990 January 21, “Fuck Buddy/ies wanted”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 27, Personals, page 13

See all 8 meanings of maul

Questions about mauled

What is mauled the simple past and past participle of?
Mauled is the simple past and past participle of maul.

Words near mauled in the dictionary

  1. Maulding
  2. Mauldings
  3. Maulds Meaburn
  4. maule
  5. Maule's quince
  6. mauled
  7. maulee
  8. maulees
  9. mauleonite
  10. mauler
  11. maulers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mauled (page history and authors); maul (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: “mauled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mauled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.