mangle

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 26, 2014 is: mangle • \MANG-gul\  • verb 1 : to injure with deep disfiguring wounds by cutting, tearing, or crushing 2 : to spoil, injure, or make incoherent especially through ineptitude Examples: The band thoroughly mangled their cover of the classic rock anthem. "When Sanchez was put into that preseason game against the Giants in the fourth quarter in August-behind a backup offensive line-and got his right shoulder mangled, how often did you hear Sanchez complain? Never." - From an article by Mark Cannizzaro in The New York Post, March 23, 2014 Did you know? Today's word isn't the only "mangle" in English. We also have the noun "mangle" ("a machine for ironing laundry by passing it between heated rollers") and its related verb ("to press or smooth with a mangle"). There's no etymological relationship, however, between these two and the "mangle" that means "to mutilate or bungle." The ironing-related homographs come from Dutch and ultimately from a Late Latin word for a military engine used to hurl missiles. The injury-related "mangle" comes from Anglo-French and may be a descendant of "mahaigner," which means "to maim" and is an ancestor of the English words "maim" and "mayhem." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.