mangled

adjective

man·​gled ˈmaŋ-gəld How to pronounce mangled (audio)
1
: severely injured or damaged by cutting, tearing, or crushing
a mangled foot
A special bed—a box lined with cottonwool—was made for the mangled pigeon while the Wilsons nursed it …Iain Macdonald
mangled warplanes lie strewn across the desert floor, their wings and tails torn off, their fuselages punctured.Richard Wolkomir
2
: spoiled or made incoherent
a mangled message
mangled punctuation/syntax
This is a draft manuscript waiting for an editor to impose coherence and to smooth over mangled grammar, malapropisms and political oversimplifications.Emily MacFarquhar

Examples of mangled in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Visuals from the scene showed the mangled remains of the aircraft dented into the side of the building, dismantling its iron grills and creating a gaping hole in the structure. Reuters, USA Today, 22 July 2025 Firefighters sprayed water on the mangled remains of the plane, which appeared to have rammed into the side of a building, damaging iron grills and creating a gaping hole in the structure, footage filmed by Reuters showed. Reuters, FOXNews.com, 21 July 2025 Police arrested 23-year-old Juventino Anastacio Florentino after his mangled sedan was found sitting in the driveway of a Staten Island home, police sources said. Kerry Burke, New York Daily News, 11 July 2025 Officers later arrived to find a mangled gray SUV, with its driver pinned underneath, according to a criminal complaint in the case. Chris Ramirez, jsonline.com, 9 July 2025 See All Example Sentences for mangled

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of mangled was in the 15th century

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Cite this Entry

“Mangled.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mangled. Accessed 2 Aug. 2025.

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