mangled

adjective

man·​gled ˈmaŋ-gəld 

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

… mangled warplanes lie strewn across the desert floor, their wings and tails torn off, their fuselages punctured.

—Richard Wolkomir

2

: 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

Examples of mangled in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Aerial videos of the April 10 response show divers jumping into the murky water from NYPD boats and wading toward the mangled aircraft. —Alexandra Koch, FOXNews.com, 17 Apr. 2025

Video of the Russian strike and its aftermath showed mangled and bloodied bodies lying motionless, burning cars and debris covering the road, as screams and sirens wailed in the background. —Justin Porter, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025

Associated Press reporters saw the mangled, bloodied car after the attack as relatives wept over the bodies. —Samy Magdy, Chicago Tribune, 13 Apr. 2025

Footage circulating on social media and verified by NBC News showed the mangled remains of a fuel station outside a 10Box store in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. —Phil Helsel, NBC News, 14 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mangled

• angled
• dangled
• fangled
• jangled
• spangled
• strangled
• tangled
• wrangled
• disentangled
• entangled
• newfangled
• untangled