Other forms: cackling, cackles, cackled
To cackle is to laugh in a harsh broken way. Cackle with glee, a witch's cackle, cackled at the joke.
It is the laugh of hens and of stage witches, broken into separate sounds rather than flowing, which is why it reads as malicious even when it is not. The word is imitative of the sound a hen makes. Note that cackle also means idle chatter — cut the cackle means get to the point.
1verbcackleTo laugh in a harsh broken way.
“My aunt cackled at her own joke so loudly that everyone turned round.”
cackle is a harsh laugh.
Middle English caclen imitates the sound of a hen. Dutch kakelen and German gackern are formed the same way.
Proto-West Germanic
*kakulōn
Old English
*caclian
Middle English
caclen
English, today
cackle
Built from
From Middle English caclen, cakelen, perhaps from Old English caclian, cacolian, from Proto-West Germanic kakulōn, kakilōn (“to cackle, gaggle, yelp, snarl”), perhaps of imitative of the sound origin. by surface analysis, cack + -le. Compare Dutch kakelen (“to cackle”), German Low German kakeln (“to cackle”), German kakeln (“to blather”), Danish kagle (“to cackle”), Swedish kackla (“to cackle”). Compare also Old English cahhetan, ċeahhettan (“to laugh loudly; cackle”), German gackern (“to cackle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA