Word: jangle Part of Speech: verb 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. Pronunciation: /ˈd͡ʒæŋɡəl/, [ˈd͡ʒæŋɡəl] ~ [ˈd͡ʒæŋɡl̩], /ˈd͡ʒeɪ̯ŋɡəl/, [ˈd͡ʒeɪ̯ŋɡəl] ~ [ˈd͡ʒeɪ̯ŋɡl̩], /ˈd͡ʒɛ̃ŋɡəl/ 1. To cause (something) to make a rattling metallic sound. Labels: transitive Example: 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, […] 2. To express or say (something) in an argumentative or harsh manner. Labels: figuratively, transitive Example: You always could / Find that soft spot in me when I was angry / You always could / Jangle everything that I would say / Until you got it your way 3. To irritate or jar (something). Labels: figuratively, transitive Example: The sound from the next apartment jangled my nerves. 4. To make a rattling metallic sound. Labels: intransitive Example: 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. Example: 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. 5. To speak in an angry or harsh manner. Labels: archaic, intransitive Example: 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: […] Example: Prussian Trenck, the poor subterranean Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner. 6. To quarrel verbally; to wrangle. Labels: archaic, intransitive Example: 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. Example: 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. 7. Of a person: to speak loudly or too much; to chatter, to prate; of a bird: to make a noisy chattering sound. Labels: Northern-England, intransitive Example: 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.