mangle

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“
"Beats a washboard an' your knuckles, and, besides, it saves at least fifteen minutes in the week, an' fifteen minutes ain't to be sneezed at in this shebang Running the collars and cuffs through the mangle was also Joe's idea.

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Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. transitive verb To mutilate or disfigure by battering, hacking, cutting, or tearing. See Synonyms at batter1.
  2. transitive verb To ruin or spoil through ineptitude or ignorance: mangle a speech.
  3. noun A machine for pressing fabrics by means of heated rollers.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • I was kind of overwhelmed by the two new tables ( 'nat' and 'mangle' -- neither of which I know what to do with). —  LinuxQuestions.org
  • A young woman who only last summer broke her hand in a mangle was found in a rescue home in January, explaining her recent experience by the phrase that she was "up against it when leaving the hospital in October In spite of many such heart-breaking instances the movement for safeguarding machinery and securing indemnity for industrial accidents proceeds all too slowly. —  A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil
  • As the "Lustre" is paid for and securely packed up, and may suit the largest drawing-room at Mr. Morris's house in Philadelphia, he does not incline to part with it; there is a mangle in the kitchen, which Mrs. Morris proposes to leave, taking his mangle instead; [a mangle was a machine for washing or pressing, then in use, and a fixture, I think;] he would not object provided his was as good, but not if he would be the gainer by exchanging. —  Washington in Domestic Life
  • Who that has witnessed the barbarous and unmanly sports of the cock-pit and the stake--the fiendlike ingenuity displayed by the lord of the creation in teaching his dependents to torture, mangle, and destroy each other for his own amusement--the cruelties of the greedy and savage task-master towards the dumb labourer whose strength has decayed in his service--or the sufferings of the helpless brute that drags with pain and difficulty its maimed carcass to Smithfield--what reasonable being that has witnessed all or any of this, will venture to affirm that interference is officious and uncalled for? —  The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 346, December 13, 1828
  • Books, likewise, which were a luxury scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little library: while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a farm-house as a mangle or a frying-pan; and there are actually more copies printed of "Cherry ripe," than of Tull's husbandry. —  The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

scorch ·  crumple ·  maim ·  lifeless ·  misshapen ·  wither ·  bony ·  bloody ·  contort ·  shrink ·  shapeless ·  skeletal

Used in the same contextWord Family

mangle:   mangled
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English manglen, from Anglo-Norman mangler, frequentative of Old French mangoner, to cut to bits; possibly akin to mahaignier, to maim; see mayhem.
  2. Dutch mangel, from German, from Middle High German, diminutive of mange, mangonel, from Late Latin manganum, catapult; see mangonel.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. Early modern English also mangil; from Middle English mangelen, as if for *mankelen, freq. of manken, mutilate; mixed with Middle Latin mangulare for *manculare, mangle; cf. D. Old French mangonner, mangle. Cf. mangelen, Old High German mangolōn, mankolōn, Middle High German mangelen, German mangeln, Danish mangle, be wanting, lack, freq. of Old High German mangōn, mengen, be wanting, lack: see mank. The relations of these forms are somewhat uncertain.
  2. from Dutch mangel = Middle Low German mangel- (in comp.) = German mangel, mandel = Swedish mangel = Danish mangle- (in comp., (cf. Polish magiel = Bohemian magl = Little Russian mahel = Lithuanian mangalis = Hungarian mangorlō, from G.), a mangle, diminutive (due perhaps in part to the Old French mangonel, later English mangonel) of a form represented by G. mange, a mangle, Middle High German mange, a machine for smoothing linen, a war-engine, = Icelandic mangi, a mangonel, = Italian mangano, a machine for smoothing linen, a war-engine, from Middle Latin mangonum, mangona, mango(n-), a war-engine for throwing stones, etc., from Greek μάγγανον, a war-engine for throwing stones, the axis of a pulley, a bolt, a hunting-net, etc., also a means of charming or bewitching (a philter, drug, etc.). Cf. mangonel, mangonize.
  3. = D. Middle Low German mangelen = German mangeln = Swedish mangla = Danish mangle, mangle; from the noun.
 

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/ˈmæŋgl/
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