Definition

1. Verb:

   • To severely damage or injure by tearing, crushing, or cutting: To inflict violent and disfiguring damage on something or someone, often resulting in a mangled state.
   • To ruin or spoil something, especially language or a piece of art, through incompetence: To distort or garble something, making it unrecognizable or ineffective.
   • To press and smooth fabric using a mangle (machine): To pass laundry through a mechanical wringer with heated rollers to dry and iron it.

2. Noun:

   • A machine with heated rollers for pressing and drying laundry: A device, often hand-cranked or electric, used to wring water from and press flat items like sheets.

Usage Examples

• Verb (to damage severely):
  • The car accident mangled the vehicle beyond recognition.
  • His hand was mangled in the industrial machinery.
• Verb (to spoil or distort):
  • The inexperienced actor completely mangled the famous soliloquy.
  • The poor translation mangled the original meaning of the poem.
• Verb (to press laundry):
  • She used to mangle the bed linens to get them perfectly smooth.
• Noun (the machine):
  • The old mangle in the laundry room is now an antique.

Advanced Usage

• "to get mangled": To become severely damaged or distorted.
  • The facts got mangled as the rumor spread.
• Used figuratively to describe the brutal distortion of abstract concepts like truth, logic, or language.
  • The politician's speech mangled the economic data to support his argument.

Variants and Related Words

• Mangled (adj): Describing something that has been severely damaged or disfigured.
  • The rescuers found the mangled wreckage of the plane.
• Mangling (n/gerund): The act or process of mangling.
  • The mangling of the historical facts was unacceptable.

Synonyms

• Mutilate: To inflict a violent and disfiguring injury.
• Disfigure: To spoil the appearance of.
• Garbled: Rendered unclear or distorted (for language/meaning).
• Wringer: A machine for squeezing water out of wet clothes (related to the noun 'mangle').

Related Phrasal Verbs

(Note: 'Mangle' is not commonly used in phrasal verb constructions. Its meanings are typically expressed directly.)

Related Idioms

• "Mangle the language/message": A common idiom referring to the corruption or poor delivery of speech or writing.
  • He was so nervous he completely mangled his wedding vows.

Noun

1. clothes dryer for drying and ironing laundry by passing it between two heavy heated rollers

Verb

1. destroy or injure severely
   • The madman mutilates art work
2. alter so as to make unrecognizable
   • The tourists murdered the French language
3. injure badly by beating
4. press with a mangle
   • mangle the sheets