jangle
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdʒæŋɡl̩/
ipa: /ˈd͡ʒæŋɡ(ə)l/
rhymes: -æŋɡəl
Forms: form: jangles
form: jangling
form: jangled
form: jangled
Etymology: From Middle English janglen (“to talk excessively, chatter; to talk idly, gossip; to nag; to complain, grumble; to argue, debate; to discuss, talk; to talk indistinctly, jabber; to make a noise or outcry; of a bird: to chatter, twitter”) [and other forms], from Old French jangler (“to chatter, gossip; to argue noisily; to bawl”) [and other forms]; further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Old Dutch *jangelon (“to jeer”) (compare Middle Dutch jangelen (“to murmur, grumble, buzz, mutter, drone, simmer”), modern Dutch jengelen (“to whine, persistently nag, whimper”), though the Oxford English Dictionary finds this improbable) and ultimately imitative.
Senses: examples: text: Now ſee what noble and moſt ſoueraigne reaſon / Like ſweet bells iangled, out of time, and harſh, /That vnmatcht forme, and ſtature of blowne youth / Blaſted with extacie, […]
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
glosses: To cause (something) to make a rattling metallic sound.
glosses: To express or say (something) in an argumentative or harsh manner.
examples: text: The sound from the next apartment jangled my nerves.
glosses: To irritate or jar (something).
examples: text: A ſincere Heart that would ſerve God with his beſt, findeth more in a duty, than he could expect: and by Praying gets more of the fervency and Ardours of praying, as a Bell may be long a raiſing, but when it is up it jangleth not as it did at firſt.
ref: a. 1678, Tho[mas] Manton, “[The Transfiguration of Christ.] Sermon II.”, in Christs Temptation and Transfiguration, Practically Explained and Improved in Several Sermons, London: [s.n.], published 1685, →OCLC, pages 43–44:
text: There is hardly a week without some saint in it who has to be commemorated, and often there are two in the same week, and sometimes three. I know when we have reached another saint, for then the church bells of the nearest village begin to jangle, and go on doing it every two hours.
ref: 1920, [Elizabeth von Arnim], In the Mountains, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, page 43:
glosses: To make a rattling metallic sound.
examples: text: What jangleſt thou Jedburgh? thou jags for nought, / There ſhal a guilful groom dwell thee within, / The towre that thou truſts in, as the truth is, / Shal be traced with a trace, trow thou none other: […]
ref: 1745, “The Prophesie of Waldhave”, in The Whole Prophecies of Scotland, England, France, Ireland and Denmark; […], Edinburgh; London: […] M[ary] Cooper, […], →OCLC, page 25:
text: Prussian Trenck, the poor subterranean Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner.
ref: 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Fatherland in Danger”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book III (The Girondins), page 184:
text: [T]hat brutish god-forgetting Profit-and-Loss Philosophy and Life-theory which we hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses, sporting-clubs, leading-articles, pulpits, and platforms, everywhere as the Ultimate Gospel and candid Plain-English of Man's Life, from the throats and pens and thoughts of all but all men!
ref: 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Working Aristocracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk), page 108:
glosses: To speak in an angry or harsh manner.
examples: text: Good witts will be iangling, but gentles agree, / This ciuill warre of wittes were much better vſed / On Nauar and his Bookmen, for heere tis abuſed.
ref: c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [1880], →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: Homoiousion, Homoousion, vain logical jangle, then or before or at any time, may jangle itself out, and go whither and how it likes: this is the thing it all struggles to mean, if it would mean anything.
ref: 1840 May 8, Thomas Carlyle, “Lecture II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam.”, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1840, →OCLC, page 58:
text: The time of year a twelvemonth past, / When Fred and I would meet, / We needs must jangle, till at last / We fought and I was beat.
ref: 1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XXV”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 36:
synonyms: squabble
glosses: To quarrel verbally; to wrangle.
examples: text: It was uſual then about midnight, when there was no noiſe in the houſe, but all ſtill, to hear the two nightingales jangling, and talking with each other, and plainly imitating men's diſcourſes.
ref: 1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of the Nightingale, and Other Soft-billed Song-birds”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume V, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, page 293:
glosses: Of a person: to speak loudly or too much; to chatter, to prate; of a bird: to make a noisy chattering sound.
Derived terms: word: ajangle
word: interjangle
word: jangled
word: jangler
word: jangleress
word: janglesome
word: jangling
word: janglingly
word: jangly
word: nerve-jangling
word: unjangled