Word of the Day

: April 26, 2014

mangle

verb MANG-gul

What It Means

1 : to injure with deep disfiguring wounds by cutting, tearing, or crushing

2 : to spoil, injure, or make incoherent especially through ineptitude

mangle in Context

The band thoroughly mangled their cover of the classic rock anthem.

"When Sanchez was put into that preseason game against the Giants in the fourth quarter in August-behind a backup offensive line-and got his right shoulder mangled, how often did you hear Sanchez complain? Never." - From an article by Mark Cannizzaro in The New York Post, March 23, 2014

Did You Know?

Today's word isn't the only "mangle" in English. We also have the noun "mangle" ("a machine for ironing laundry by passing it between heated rollers") and its related verb ("to press or smooth with a mangle"). There's no etymological relationship, however, between these two and the "mangle" that means "to mutilate or bungle." The ironing-related homographs come from Dutch and ultimately from a Late Latin word for a military engine used to hurl missiles. The injury-related "mangle" comes from Anglo-French and may be a descendant of "mahaigner," which means "to maim" and is an ancestor of the English words "maim" and "mayhem."