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

The footage, which the Herald decided was too graphic to be published, also showed a Monroe firefighter treat Lewis as his leg, with a makeshift tourniquet around the middle, appeared badly mangled. —David Goodhue, Miami Herald, 12 July 2024

Several videos of the tornado were posted to X, showing mangled power lines, uprooted trees and damaged buildings. —Christopher Cann, USA TODAY, 11 July 2024

Emergency crews pulled the woman from a mangled wreck of a single-engine Cessna 172, according to the Courant. —Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News, 3 June 2024

Cut to Liz’s mangled, dead body slumped over, her stomach cut open, and the liver beside her amid pools of blood. —Bill Desowitz, IndieWire, 25 June 2024

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1