1
: severely injured or damaged by cutting, tearing, or crushing
a mangled foot
A special bed—a box lined with cottonwool—was made for the mangled pigeon while the Wilsons nursed it …—
Iain Macdonald
Iain Macdonald… mangled warplanes lie strewn across the desert floor, their wings and tails torn off, their fuselages punctured.—Richard Wolkomir
Richard Wolkomir2
: spoiled or made incoherent
a mangled message
mangled punctuation/syntax
This is a draft manuscript waiting for an editor to impose coherence and to smooth over mangled grammar, malapropisms and political oversimplifications.—Emily MacFarquhar
Emily MacFarquharExamples of mangled in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Other images show debris alongside the mangled orange and white funicular car, which slammed into buildings before landing on its side, off the track.
—Natalie Neysa Alund, USA Today, 4 Sep. 2025
Even its mangled shreds will be reconstituted: as rebar, a toaster, maybe another car.
—Camila Domonoske, NPR, 4 Sep. 2025
While the Gorn, whom she’s noticed has a mangled leg, sleeps after their meal, Erica slips away with a comms array only to have her life saved by the Gorn, again, when Erica’s attacked by more vicious space bugs.
—Keith Phipps, Vulture, 4 Sep. 2025
Video from local news stations showed mangled train cars, some stacked atop each other, and smoke from grass fires drifting into the surrounding rural area.
—Jordan King, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mangled
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Natalie Neysa Alund, USA Today, 4 Sep. 2025
Even its mangled shreds will be reconstituted: as rebar, a toaster, maybe another car.
—Camila Domonoske, NPR, 4 Sep. 2025
While the Gorn, whom she’s noticed has a mangled leg, sleeps after their meal, Erica slips away with a comms array only to have her life saved by the Gorn, again, when Erica’s attacked by more vicious space bugs.
—Keith Phipps, Vulture, 4 Sep. 2025
Video from local news stations showed mangled train cars, some stacked atop each other, and smoke from grass fires drifting into the surrounding rural area.
—Jordan King, MSNBC Newsweek, 13 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mangled
Cite this Entry
“Mangled.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mangled. Accessed 30 Sep. 2025.
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