Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To cut and slash or tear at random; wound jaggedly or by numerous cuts; hack; lacerate; disfigure by cutting, hacking, tearing, or crushing: applied chiefly to the cutting of flesh.
  • Figuratively, to destroy the symmetry or completeness of; mutilate; mar through ignorance, bungling, or malice.
  • Synonyms Maim, etc. See mutilate.
  • noun A machine for smoothing fabrics or household articles of linen or cotton, as sheets, table-cloths, napkins, and towels.
  • To smooth with a mangle; calender.
  • noun See plate-straightening rolls.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To smooth with a mangle, as damp linen or cloth.
  • noun A machine for smoothing linen or cotton cloth, as sheets, tablecloths, napkins, and clothing, by roller pressure, often with heated rollers.
  • noun (Mach.) a contrivance for converting continuous circular motion into reciprocating rectilinear motion, by means of a rack and pinion, as in the mangle. The pinion is held to the rack by a groove in such a manner that it passes alternately from one side of the rack to the other, and thus gives motion to it in opposite directions, according to the side in which its teeth are engaged.
  • noun a wheel in which the teeth, or pins, on its face, are interrupted on one side, and the pinion, working in them, passes from inside to outside of the teeth alternately, thus converting the continuous circular motion of the pinion into a reciprocating circular motion of the wheel.
  • transitive verb To cut or bruise with repeated blows or strokes, making a ragged or torn wound, or covering with wounds; to tear in cutting; to cut in a bungling manner; to lacerate; to mutilate.
  • transitive verb To mutilate or injure, in making, doing, or performing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To change, mutilate or disfigure by cutting, tearing, rearranging etc.
  • verb transitive, archaic To wring laundry.
  • verb transitive, computing To modify (an identifier from source code) so as to produce a unique identifier for internal use by the compiler, etc.
  • noun A hand-operated device with rollers, for wringing laundry.
  • noun The mangle attached to wringer washing machines, often called the wringer.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb injure badly by beating
  • verb press with a mangle
  • noun clothes dryer for drying and ironing laundry by passing it between two heavy heated rollers
  • verb destroy or injure severely
  • verb alter so as to make unrecognizable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English mangelen, 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. Compare also Old High German mangolōn ("to suffer loss, be deprived") (> German mangeln ("to lack, mangle")).

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Examples

  • Rhizopora mangle is the most frequently occurring mangrove species and is found closest to the coast at heights of up to 25 m.

    Pará mangroves 2007

  • In the mangroves fringing the coastal lagoons Rhizophora mangle is characteristic.

    Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, Honduras 2008

  • Slower presentations can be the ticket for catching early-season northerns that aren't in mangle mode.

    25 Killer Spring Tips for Bass, Trout, Crappie, Walleys, and Pike 2005

  • Possibly all for the best, considering the first time I ever saw the word mangle in that context was in a Stephen King story about one that was possessed.

    All Good Fabric Weeks Must End - A Dress A Day 2006

  • MARTIN: About the fact that women who make mistakes like this or mangle a word or whatever, and you have people again, on the right like George Bush, on the left like Joe Biden, we use a word like light and we don't talk about men that way, we talk about women that way.

    'Shop Talk': The Political Witchunt For Christine O'Donnell 2010

  • MARTIN: About the fact that women who make mistakes like this or mangle a word or whatever, and you have people again, on the right like George Bush, on the left like Joe Biden, we use a word like light and we don't talk about men that way, we talk about women that way.

    'Shop Talk': The Political Witchunt For Christine O'Donnell 2010

  • Running the collars and cuffs through the mangle was also Joe's idea.

    Chapter 16 2010

  • MARTIN: About the fact that women who make mistakes like this or mangle a word or whatever, and you have people again, on the right like George Bush, on the left like Joe Biden, we use a word like light and we don't talk about men that way, we talk about women that way.

    'Shop Talk': The Political Witchunt For Christine O'Donnell 2010

  • MARTIN: About the fact that women who make mistakes like this or mangle a word or whatever, and you have people again, on the right like George Bush, on the left like Joe Biden, we use a word like light and we don't talk about men that way, we talk about women that way.

    'Shop Talk': The Political Witchunt For Christine O'Donnell 2010

  • MARTIN: About the fact that women who make mistakes like this or mangle a word or whatever, and you have people again, on the right like George Bush, on the left like Joe Biden, we use a word like light and we don't talk about men that way, we talk about women that way.

    'Shop Talk': The Political Witchunt For Christine O'Donnell 2010

Comments

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  • A machine for pressing clothes or linens.

    July 18, 2007

  • Citation on strew.

    July 1, 2009