jangle
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
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.
Inflected forms:
form: jangles
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: jangling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: jangled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: jangled
pos: verb
tags: past
form: jangles
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To cause (something) to make a rattling metallic sound.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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, […]
gloss: To express or say (something) in an argumentative or harsh manner.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: 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
gloss: To irritate or jar (something).
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: The sound from the next apartment jangled my nerves.
gloss: To make a rattling metallic sound.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: 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.
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.
gloss: To speak in an angry or harsh manner.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
intransitive
examples: 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: […]
Prussian Trenck, the poor subterranean Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner.
[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!
gloss: To quarrel verbally; to wrangle.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
intransitive
examples: 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.
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.
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.
gloss: Of a person: to speak loudly or too much; to chatter, to prate; of a bird: to make a noisy chattering sound.
pos: verb
tags: Northern-England
intransitive
examples: 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.
gloss: A rattling metallic sound; a clang.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: E'en as she spake they heard the musical jangle of sleigh-bells, / First far off, with a dreamy sound and faint in the distance, […]
Jessamy tugged the scrolled iron bellpull which hung down on one side of the gate. Somewhere behind, she could hear an answering jangle.
gloss: The sound of people talking noisily.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
gloss: Arguing, contention, squabbling.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: [I]t may be juſtly ask't, whether Timothy by this here written might know what was to be knowne concerning the orders of Church-governours or no? If he might, then in ſuch a cleere text as this may we know too without further jangle; […]
But now Sir Peter if we have finish'd our daily Jangle I presume I may go to my engagement at Lady Sneerwell's?
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.
We seem to hear the jar, the jangle, the abuse, the irrelevant argument of an Athenian court-room—Philocleon in the Wasps will not have been the first to find delight in legal battles.
gloss: A sound typified by undistorted, treble-heavy electric guitars, played in a droning chordal style, characteristic of 1960s folk rock and 1980s indie rock music.
pos: noun
tags: attributive
countable
uncountable
examples: If you like ‘jangle guitar’—where the guitar parts are chordal, arpeggiated and rhythmic—listen to players like Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, Peter Buck with R.E.M. (Life’s Rich Pageant) or Johnny Marr with The Smiths (The Queen Is Dead).
Related words: jingle
Derived words: ajangle
interjangle
jangled
jangler
jangleress
janglesome
jangling
janglingly
jangly
nerve-jangling
unjangled
jangle pop
Translations: