dangle

An agent of one intelligence agency or group who pretends to be interested in defecting or turning to another intelligence agency or group.

Noun

  1. An agent of one intelligence agency or group who pretends to be interested in defecting or turning to another intelligence agency or group.
    • The example of Oswald will show how the different operations of a dangle and a barium meal would work more efficiently together. - 2017, Nancy Howell Lee, Peter Dale Scott, Bertram Gross, Forbidden Bookshelf's...
  2. The action of dangling; a series of complex stick tricks and fakes in order to defeat the defender in style.
    • That was a sick dangle for a great goal!
  3. A dangling ornament or decoration.
    • So her father wrote to Mrs. Herring, and one day she arrived and turned out to be a little, lean old lady with a dark brown mole on one leathery cheek and wearing a black bonnet decorated with jet dangles, like tiny...

Origin

Uncertain, but likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Danish dingle, dangle, Swedish dangla (“to swing about”), Norwegian dangla, perhaps via North Frisian dangeln; all possibly related to Old Norse dengja (“to hit”).

Forms

dangles

Verb

  1. To hang loosely with the ability to swing.
    • His feet are dangling in the water.
    • He'd rather on a gibbet dangle / Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle. - 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn...
    • From her lifted hand / Dangled a length of ribbon. - 1864, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the poem)”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC:
  2. The action of performing a move or deke with the puck in order to get past a defender or goalie; perhaps because of the resemblance to dangling the puck on a string.
    • He dangled around three players and the goalie to score.
  3. To hang or trail something loosely.
    • I like to sit on the edge and dangle my feet in the water.
  4. To put forth as a possibility.
    • That it happens to have been produced under the imprimatur of Michael Bay dangles the possibility of poor taste, but unfortunately, bombast and conspicuous consumption are nowhere to be found. - 2020 December 10,...
  5. To trail or follow around.
    • To dangle at the elbow of a wench who can't make up her mind to accept the common title of wife, till she has been courted a certain number of weeks — so the old blinker, her father, says. - 1833, Miller's Modern Acting...
  6. Of a patient: to be positioned with the legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
    • Record the time and duration of dangling, patient's pulse and respirations and patient's general tolerance of the procedure. […] The next step usually in getting the patient out of bed is sitting […] - 1976, R. Winifred...
    • [P]ivot to bring the patient's legs over the side of the bed. Be Smart! Stay with the patient as he dangles. - 2012, Judith M. Wilkinson, Leslie S. Treas, Pocket Nursing Skills: What You Need to Know Now:
  7. To position (a patient) in this way.
    • Using proper body mechanics for dangling a patient at the side of the bed. - 2012, Judith M. Wilkinson, Leslie S. Treas, Pocket Nursing Skills: What You Need to Know Now:

Forms

dangles dangling dangled

Derived

adangle bedangle danglable dangleable dangle after dangleberry dangler dangle the Dunlops dangling else dangling link danglingly dangling modifier dangling participle dangling pointer dangly dingleberry dingle-dangle overdangle wangle