Other forms: mangled, mangles, mangling
To mangle is to crush and twist something out of all shape. Mangled wreckage, mangle the words, badly mangled.
It implies force and disorder together — a mangled thing is not merely broken but unrecognisable. Figuratively, mangling a name or a quotation is getting it badly wrong. Quite separately, a mangle is a machine with rollers for wringing water out of washing. Note that the verb goes back to a French word about mutilating.
1verbmangleTo crush and twist something out of all shape.
“The storm mangled the old metal fence into a twisted heap.”
2nounmachineA machine with rollers for wringing washing.
“Grandma fed the wet sheets through the mangle before hanging them on the line.”
mangle is a crushing.
MANGLE → out in a TANGLE
It comes out crushed and in a tangle, and in no shape it ever had.
hooks ontotangle
Anglo-Norman mangler comes from a French verb meaning to mutilate, of Germanic origin. Mayhem is related.
Old French
mangonner — to cut to pieces
Middle English
mangelen
English, today
mangle
Built from
From Middle English mangelen, manglen, from Anglo-Norman - mangler, mahangler, frequentative of either Old French mangonner (“to cut to pieces”) or mahaigner (“to mutilate”), of gem - origin, for which see mayhem. Alternate etymology derives mangle from Middle English mankelen, a frequentative form of manken (“to mutilate”), from Old English mancian, bemancian (“to maim”). More at mank.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Cutting & Breaking