# dangle
## English
### Etymology

Uncertain, but likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Danish dingle, dangle, Swedish dangla (“to swing about”), Norwegian dangla, perhaps via North Frisian dangeln; all possibly related to Old Norse dengja (“to hit”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈdæŋ.ɡl̩/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -æŋɡəl

### Verb

dangle (third-person singular simple present dangles, present participle dangling, simple past and past participle dangled)
* (intransitive) To hang loosely with the ability to swing.
    His feet are dangling in the water.
** 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:He'd rather on a gibbet dangle / Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle.
** 1864, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the poem)”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC:From her lifted hand / Dangled a length of ribbon.
** 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.
* (intransitive, slang, ice hockey, lacrosse) The action of performing a move or deke with the puck in order to get past a defender or goalie; perhaps because of the resemblance to dangling the puck on a string.
    He dangled around three players and the goalie to score.
* (transitive) To hang or trail something loosely.
    I like to sit on the edge and dangle my feet in the water.
* (transitive, figurative, by extension) To put forth as a possibility.
** 2020 December 10, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “The first movie inspired by the pandemic is here, and it sucks”, in The Onion AV Club‎, archived from the original on 21 December 2020:That it happens to have been produced under the imprimatur of Michael Bay dangles the possibility of poor taste, but unfortunately, bombast and conspicuous consumption are nowhere to be found.
* (intransitive, dated) To trail or follow around.
** 1833, Miller's Modern Acting Drama:To dangle at the elbow of a wench who can't make up her mind to accept the common title of wife, till she has been courted a certain number of weeks — so the old blinker, her father, says.
* (medicine, intransitive) Of a patient: to be positioned with the legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
** 1976, R. Winifred Heyward Johnson, Douglass W. Johnson, Introduction to Nursing Care, page 139:Record the time and duration of dangling, patient's pulse and respirations and patient's general tolerance of the procedure. […] The next step usually in getting the patient out of bed is sitting […]
** 2012, Judith M. Wilkinson, Leslie S. Treas, Pocket Nursing Skills: What You Need to Know Now:[P]ivot to bring the patient's legs over the side of the bed. Be Smart! Stay with the patient as he dangles.
* (medicine, transitive) To position (a patient) in this way.
** 2012, Judith M. Wilkinson, Leslie S. Treas, Pocket Nursing Skills: What You Need to Know Now:Using proper body mechanics for dangling a patient at the side of the bed.

#### Derived terms

* adangle
* bedangle
* danglable
* dangleable
* dangle after
* dangleberry
* dangler
* dangle the Dunlops
* dangling else
* dangling link
* danglingly
* dangling modifier
* dangling participle
* dangling pointer
* dangly
* dingleberry
* dingle-dangle
* overdangle
* wangle

#### Translations
### Noun

dangle (plural dangles)
* An agent of one intelligence agency or group who pretends to be interested in defecting or turning to another intelligence agency or group.
** 2017, Nancy Howell Lee, Peter Dale Scott, Bertram Gross, Forbidden Bookshelf's Resistance in America Collection:The example of Oswald will show how the different operations of a dangle and a barium meal would work more efficiently together.
* (slang, ice hockey, lacrosse) The action of dangling; a series of complex stick tricks and fakes in order to defeat the defender in style.
    That was a sick dangle for a great goal!
* A dangling ornament or decoration.
** 1941, Flora Thompson, Over to Candleford:So her father wrote to Mrs. Herring, and one day she arrived and turned out to be a little, lean old lady with a dark brown mole on one leathery cheek and wearing a black bonnet decorated with jet dangles, like tiny fishing rods.

### References

* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “dangle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
* ↑ “dangla”, in Svenska Akademiens ordbok [Dictionary of the Swedish Academy]‎ (in Swedish), 1937

### Anagrams

* Glenda, angled, geland, gladen