cackle
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: gambling
games
Etymology: From Middle English caclen, cakelen, perhaps from Old English *caclian, *cacolian, from Proto-West Germanic *kakulōn, *kakilōn (“to cackle, gaggle, yelp, snarl”), perhaps of imitative origin. By surface analysis, cack + -le.
Compare Dutch kakelen (“to cackle”), German Low German kakeln (“to cackle”), German kakeln (“to blather”), Danish kagle (“to cackle”), Swedish kackla (“to cackle”). Compare also Old English cahhetan, ċeahhettan (“to laugh loudly; cackle”), German gackern (“to cackle”).
Inflected forms:
form: cackles
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: cackles
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: cackling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cackled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: cackled
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: The cry of a hen or goose, especially when laying an egg.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I heard a grey hen cackling among the ling; I called and thought, "If I could get a sight of you now, it would be your last cackle;" just then I heard something moving behind me on the path.
gloss: A laugh resembling the cry of a hen or goose.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: Futile or excessively noisy talk.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: There's no time to waste on silly cackle.
gloss: A group of hyenas.
pos: noun
tags: collective
countable
uncountable
gloss: To make a sharp, broken noise or cry, as a hen or goose does.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: When every goose is cackling.
I heard a grey hen cackling among the ling; I called and thought, "If I could get a sight of you now, it would be your last cackle;" just then I heard something moving behind me on the path.
gloss: To laugh with a broken sound similar to a hen's cry.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The witch cackled evilly.
She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.
gloss: To talk in a silly manner; to prattle.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: It is also the business of a sensible government, not to cackle on its discoveries
gloss: To pretend to rattle (dice) in one's hand while gripping them so that they maintain their orientation.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: Danny cackled the dice furiously in his cupped hand, then rolled them so they stopped inches from Slattery's hands. The result was the same as before – a seven.
[…] they spun all right, or so it seemed, and hit the wall all right, or so it seemed, but bottom line was this: The stirring of the dice was merely cackling, the cubes artfully framed so that the spots in the kid's fists showed 4‐4 up‐right and weren't really rattled but rather, held in control by the pinky, forefinger and thumb; […]
Related words: cluck
Derived words: cackleberry
cackle-fart
cackly
hen-cackle
cackle bladder
cackle-bladder
cackle fruit
cackler
cackling goose
cacklingly
Translations: