mangle
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
-
to smooth or press with a mangle.
-
Metalworking. to squeeze (metal plates) between rollers.
verb
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to mutilate, disfigure, or destroy by cutting, crushing, or tearing
-
to ruin, spoil, or mar
noun
verb
Synonym Usage
See maim.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mangle1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French mangler, perhaps dissimilated variant of Old French mangonner “to mangle”; akin to mangonel
Origin of mangle2
1765–75; < Dutch mangel ≪ Late Latin manganum. See mangonel
Explanation
When you mangle something, you completely destroy it, by ripping, cutting, crushing, or otherwise mauling it into pieces. You shouldn't leave your new puppy alone in a room with your favorite shoes because he might mangle them with his sharp puppy teeth. A bad accident will mangle your bicycle, bending it beyond repair, and a paper shredder mangles a document by slicing it up. You can also use the word mangle to describe what happens when your uncle's terrible bluegrass band performs a cover of your favorite classic rock song — they mangle it.
Vocabulary lists containing mangle
Ghost
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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"Marigolds"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
If “to toss and mangle these poor human bodies was the . . . law of Nature,” Thoreau asks us, “why waste any time in awe or pity?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
Anthony Seward was 20 when his hand was crushed in an industrial mangle - an injury that required multiple surgeries, including having the hand sewn into his abdomen to help it heal.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2023
To slightly mangle Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run": the market's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance Powell drive; everybody's out on the run tonight, and there's no place left to hide.
From Reuters ● Mar. 7, 2023
Giant pumps that send water south through aqueducts mangle the critters or draw them into the grasp of lurking predators.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
An empty parrot cage, a mangle, a towering dresser, a scythe.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
If he mangles the facts or ignores them altogether, which he does often, Seales said there are other news sites and sources where viewers can fact-check him.
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2024
The radiation inflicts photochemical damage that mangles nucleic acids—inactivating pathogenic viruses and bacteria, although not necessarily killing them.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 22, 2022
Franco will have to work to “build out” his accent, but he’ll get bonus points from us if he mangles the ‘r’ in ¡compañero! — a.k.a. “comrade” in Cuban.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2022
Though DALL-E often fails to understand what someone has described and sometimes mangles the image it produces, OpenAI continues to improve the technology.
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2022
It leaks into laundries and wrangles With mangles; It trips over turnips and tumbles down-hill; It rolls like a coach along highways And byways, But never gets anywhere, go as it will!
From The Admiral's Caravan by Birch, Reginald Bathurst
The eerie ambient music that drives “Obsession” — so artfully serrated and delicately mangled by Burwell — emerged from a counterintuitive creative nuance that AI could never capture.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
John Schaeffer sent pictures of his Ram 1500, mangled by a head-on accident with a Tesla.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
Images from the scene show a mangled heap of scaffolding and concrete splaying out onto the street, covered by green safety netting.
From BBC ● May 24, 2026
Such gaps are not abstract — they represent real human lives that are lost or mangled.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2026
“So we’re another Horcrux down,” said Ron, and from under his jacket he pulled the mangled remains of Hufflepuff’s cup.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
“Steve ‘Manouychin’ really gave me a ‘beauty’ when he pushed this loser,” Trump posted on social media External link in August, apparently deliberately mangling Mnuchin’s name.
From Barron's ● Dec. 24, 2025
Often ridiculed by parliamentary sketch writers for mangling the English language, to supporters he appeared an ordinary man facing the intellectual bullying by people with a better education.
From BBC ● Nov. 21, 2024
In his characteristic manner, the judge mixed commendation, supplication and insinuation, mangling metaphors and whole sentences in service of cutting insights.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2024
Storm chaser Brian Emfinger told Fox Weather he watched the twister move through a mobile home park, mangling trailers and uprooting trees.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 16, 2023
Bartholomew wore khaki trousers pulled up high on his belly, and spoke with an American accent filled with holes, mangling words until they were impossible to understand.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.