fangle
A prop; a taking up; a new thing.
Noun
- A prop; a taking up; a new thing.
- Something newly fashioned; a novelty, a new fancy.
- A foolish innovation; a gewgaw; a trifling ornament.
- A conceit; whim.
Origin
Back-formation from newfangled (adjective) as if new + fangle (noun). See newfangle.
Forms
Derived
Verb
- To fashion, manufacture, invent, or create.
- […]not hereby to control and new fangle the Scripture, God forbid, but to mark how corruption and apostasy crept in by degrees, and to gather up wherever we find the remaining sparks of original truth,[…] - 1641, John...
- Jonathan Swift (1726), Gulliver's Travels, 1st edition: “But I have since found that the sea Yahoos are apt, like the land ones, to become new-fangled in their words, which the latter change every year; insomuch, as I...
- To trim showily; entangle; hang about.
- To waste time; trifle.
Origin
From Middle English fangelen (verb), from fangel (“inclined to take”, adjective), from Old English *fangol, *fangel (“inclined to take”), from fōn (“to take, seize”). Compare Old English andfangol (“undertaker, contractor”), Old English underfangelnes (“undertaking, hospitality”), Middle English fangen (“to take, seize, catch”), German fangen (“to catch”). More at fang.