jangle

A rattling metallic sound; a clang.

Noun

  1. A rattling metallic sound; a clang.
    • 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, […] - 1873 August, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[I. Tales of a Wayside Inn.] The...
    • Jessamy tugged the scrolled iron bellpull which hung down on one side of the gate. Somewhere behind, she could hear an answering jangle. - 1967, Barbara Sleigh, “The Holiday Aunt”, in Jessamy, 1st US edition,...
  2. The sound of people talking noisily.
  3. Arguing, contention, squabbling.
    • [I]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...
    • But now Sir Peter if we have finish'd our daily Jangle I presume I may go to my engagement at Lady Sneerwell's? - 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.i:
    • 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. - 1840 May 8,...

    Synonyms: altercation bickering

  4. 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.
    • 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...

    Synonyms: jingle-jangle

Origin

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.”

Forms

jangles

Related

jingle

Derived

jangle pop

Verb

  1. To cause (something) to make a rattling metallic sound.
    • 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, […] - c. 1599–1602 (date written), William...
  2. To express or say (something) in an argumentative or harsh manner.
    • You always could / Find that soft spot in me when I was angry / You always could / Jangle everything that I would say / Until you got it your way - 1978, Ashford & Simpson, “You Always Could”, in Is It Still Good to Ya:
  3. To irritate or jar (something).
    • The sound from the next apartment jangled my nerves.
  4. To make a rattling metallic sound.
    • 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...
    • 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...
  5. To speak in an angry or harsh manner.
    • 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: […] - 1745, “The...
    • Prussian Trenck, the poor subterranean Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner. - 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Fatherland in Danger”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London:...
    • [T]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...
  6. To quarrel verbally; to wrangle.
    • 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. - c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William...
    • 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. - 1840 May 8,...
    • 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. - 1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XXV”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.:...

    Synonyms: squabble

  7. Of a person: to speak loudly or too much; to chatter, to prate; of a bird: to make a noisy chattering sound.
    • 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. - 1791, Oliver...

Origin

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”) [and other forms], from Old French jangler (“to chatter, gossip; to argue noisily; to bawl”) [and other forms]; 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.

Forms

jangles jangling jangled

Derived

ajangle interjangle jangled jangler jangleress janglesome jangling janglingly jangly nerve-jangling unjangled