mangled

adjective

man·​gled ˈmaŋ-gəld 

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

Few actually believe in elves, or imagine their mock-Elizabethan speech is anything more than cheerful, mangled guesswork. —Katrina Stack, The Conversation, 16 Apr. 2026

The nose of the aircraft appeared torn off, leaving mangled parts of the front of the plane dangling toward the ground. —Minyvonne Burke, NBC news, 24 Mar. 2026

Most were able to escape the mangled aircraft, and a flight attendant still strapped in her seat survived after being thrown onto the tarmac. —Arkansas Online, 24 Mar. 2026

Images showed the mangled front of the plane lifted into the air and its tail on the tarmac. —Brian Dakss, CBS News, 23 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mangled

• angled
• dangled
• fangled
• jangled
• spangled
• strangled
• tangled
• wrangled
• disentangled
• entangled
• newfangled
• untangled