jangle

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdʒæŋɡl̩/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒæŋɡ(ə)l/
• Rhymes: -æŋɡəl
• Hyphenation: jang‧le

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”) , from Old French jangler (“to chatter, gossip; to argue noisily; to bawl”) ; 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.

jangle (third-person singular simple present jangles, present participle jangling, simple past and past participle jangled)

1. (transitive)
   1. To cause (something) to make a rattling metallic sound.
      • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke:  (Second Quarto), London: I R for N L , published 1604, →OCLC, :

        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.
   3. (figuratively) To irritate or jar (something).

      The sound from the next apartment jangled my nerves.

2. (intransitive)
   1. To make a rattling metallic sound.
      • a. 1678, Tho Manton, “ Sermon II.”, in Christs Temptation and Transfiguration, Practically Explained and Improved in Several Sermons, London: , published 1685, →OCLC, pages 43–44:

        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.

      • 1920, , In the Mountains, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, page 43:

        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.

   2. (archaic) To speak in an angry or harsh manner.
      • 1745, “The Prophesie of Waldhave”, in The Whole Prophecies of Scotland, England, France, Ireland and Denmark; , Edinburgh, London: M Cooper, minster">…], →OCLC, page 25:

        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:

      • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Fatherland in Danger”, in The French Revolution: A History  In Three Volumes">…], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, , →OCLC, book III (The Girondins), page 184:

        Prussian Trenck, the poor subterranean Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner.

      • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Working Aristocracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk), page 108:

        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!

   3. (archaic) To quarrel verbally; to wrangle.

      Synonym: squabble

      • c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere , A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost.  (First Quarto), London: W W for Cutbert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W Griggs, , , →OCLC, :

        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.

      • 1840 May 8, Thomas Carlyle, “Lecture II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam.”, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History, London: Chapman and Hall, , published 1840, →OCLC, page 58:

        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.

      • 1896, A E Housman, “ XXV”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 36:

        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.

   4. (Northern England) Of a person: to speak loudly or too much; to chatter, to prate; of a bird: to make a noisy chattering sound.
      • 1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of the Nightingale, and Other Soft-billed Song-birds”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature.  In Eight Volumes">…], new edition, volume V, London: F Wingrave, successor to Mr. Nourse, , →OCLC, page 293:

        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.

From Middle English jangle (“gossip, idle talk; a dispute”), from Anglo-Norman jangle and Old French jangle (“gossip, idle talk; a dispute”), from Old French jangler (“to chatter, gossip; to argue noisily; to bawl”): see further at etymology 1. Later uses are derived directly from the verb.

Sense 3 (“sound typified by undistorted, treble-heavy electric guitars”) is said to derive from a line in the song Mr. Tambourine Man (1965) by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (born 1941): “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me / In the jingle jangle morning, I’ll come following you.”

jangle (countable and uncountable, plural jangles)

1. A rattling metallic sound; a clang.
   • 1873 August, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “ The Theologian’s Tale. Elizabeth.”, in Aftermath, Boston, Mass.: James R Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, stanza II, page 45:

     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,

   • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, “The Holiday Aunt”, in Jessamy, 1st US edition, Indianapolis, Ind., Kansas City, Mo.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 8:

     Jessamy tugged the scrolled iron bellpull which hung down on one side of the gate. Somewhere behind, she could hear an answering jangle.

2. (figuratively)
   1. The sound of people talking noisily.
   2. (archaic) Arguing, contention, squabbling.

      Synonyms: altercation, bickering

      • 1642 (indicated as 1641), John Milton, “That Church Governement is Set Downe in Holy Scripture, and that to Say Otherwise is Untrue”, in The Reason of Church-governement Urg’d against Prelaty , London: E G for Iohn Rothwell, , →OCLC, 1st book, page 8:

        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;

      • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.i:

        But now Sir Peter if we have finish'd our daily Jangle I presume I may go to my engagement at Lady Sneerwell's?

      • 1840 May 8, Thomas Carlyle, “Lecture II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam.”, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History, London: Chapman and Hall, , published 1840, →OCLC, page 58:

        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.

3. (music, attributively) 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.

   Synonym: jingle-jangle

   • 2008, Rikky Rooksby, Play Great Guitar: Brilliant Ideas for Getting More out of Your Six-string, Oxford, Oxfordshire: The Infinite Ideas Company, →ISBN, page 228:

     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).

A jangle is somewhat harsher than a jingle.

• jangle pop

• jingle

• jangle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• jangle (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia