Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To make a harsh metallic sound.
  • intransitive verb To cause to make a harsh discordant sound.
  • intransitive verb To have an irritating effect on.
  • noun A harsh metallic sound.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Idle talk; chatter; babble.
  • noun Altercation; wrangle; quarrel.
  • noun Discordant sound.
  • noun A seaweed, Laminaria digitata.
  • To talk much or loudly; chatter; babble; jabber.
  • To quarrel; altercate; bicker; wrangle; grumble.
  • To sound discordant or harsh; make harsh discord.
  • To gossip; contend; tell.
  • To cause to sound harsh or inharmonious; cause to emit discordant sounds.
  • To utter in a discordant or inharmonious manner.

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

  • noun Idle talk; prate; chatter; babble.
  • noun Discordant sound; wrangling.
  • noun The unmelodious ringing of multiple metallic objects striking together, such as a set of small bells.
  • intransitive verb To sound harshly or discordantly, as bells out of tune.
  • intransitive verb To talk idly; to prate; to babble; to chatter; to gossip.
  • intransitive verb To quarrel in words; to altercate; to wrangle.
  • transitive verb To cause to sound harshly or inharmoniously; to produce discordant sounds with.

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

  • verb intransitive To make a metallic sound.
  • verb intransitive To cause something to make a metallic sound.
  • verb intransitive To irritate something.
  • noun A metallic sound.

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

  • noun a metallic sound
  • verb make a sound typical of metallic objects

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English janglen, to chatter, from Old French jangler, probably of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(onomatopoeia); compare jingle.

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Examples

  • They're wrapped up in jangle and glisten in the sun, smelling like a new cassette.

    Music (For Robots): July 2006 Archives 2006

  • They're wrapped up in jangle and glisten in the sun, smelling like a new cassette.

    I Must've Spent 30 Rainy Days (Music (For Robots)) 2006

  • Bartlett calls it the "indie summer song of the year", and I'm having a hard time coming up with a better candidate; the jangle is contagious and the singing is sincere and heart-melting.

    Music (For Robots): September 2005 Archives 2005

  • Bartlett calls it the "indie summer song of the year", and I'm having a hard time coming up with a better candidate; the jangle is contagious and the singing is sincere and heart-melting.

    My love weighs a ton (Music (For Robots)) 2005

  • There is a note of barbarism in the brassy jar and clamor of the instruments, enhanced by the bewildering ambition of each player to force through his piece the most noise and jangle, which is not always covered and subdued into a harmonious whole by the whang of the bass drum.

    Their Pilgrimage Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • There is a note of barbarism in the brassy jar and clamor of the instruments, enhanced by the bewildering ambition of each player to force through his piece the most noise and jangle, which is not always covered and subdued into a harmonious whole by the whang of the bass drum.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • It's hard to say exactly where it started, but The Beatles and The Byrds often get the most credit for starting the enduring subgenre that's come to be known as jangle pop.

    Paste Magazine 2009

  • Army, 'the professors said one to another, as, hardly stopping for a moment at the stranger's entrance, they continued to' jangle 'among themselves.

    A Book of Quaker Saints 1911

  • As a result, I’m 95 percent of the way to my goal, and extra coins jangle my pockets.

    Can you feel it? America's turning red, white and GREEN 2008

  • I heard the bells over the front door jangle as it swung open.

    How to Flirt with A Naked Werewolf Molly Harper 2011

Comments

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  • (noun/verb) - (1) Gossiping, idle talking; to jangle one's time away.

    --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887

    (2) To quarrel, argue angrily. Hence, janglesome, quarrelsome, noisy, boisterous. Northern England, Scotland.

    --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905

    January 16, 2018

  • Jangle, a portmanteau of jingle and dangle.

    March 8, 2020