cackle
verbEtymology From Middle English caclen, cakelen, perhaps from Old English *caclian, *cacolian, from Proto-West Germanic *kakulōn, *kakilōn (“to cackle, gaggle, yelp, snarl”), perhaps of imitative origin. By surface analysis, cack + -le. Compare Dutch kakelen (“to cackle”), German Low German kakeln (“to cackle”), German kakeln (“to blather”), Danish kagle (“to cackle”), Swedish kackla (“to cackle”). Compare also Old English cahhetan, ċeahhettan (“to laugh loudly; cackle”), German gackern (“to cackle”).
To make a sharp, broken noise or cry, as a hen or goose does.
- When every goose is cackling.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
- I heard a grey hen cackling among the ling; I called and thought, "If I could get a sight of you now, it would be your last cackle;" just then I heard something moving behind me on the path.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 28:
To laugh with a broken sound similar to a hen's cry.
- The witch cackled evilly.
- She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
To talk in a silly manner; to prattle.
- It is also the business of a sensible government, not to cackle on its discoveries1860, P. Thomspon, Audi Alteration[???]:
Gambling, Games Slang To pretend to rattle (dice) in one's hand while gripping them so that they maintain their orientation.
- Danny cackled the dice furiously in his cupped hand, then rolled them so they stopped inches from Slattery's hands. The result was the same as before – a seven.1941, Mignon Good Eberhart, The Third Mystery Book: Six Short Mysteries, page 120:
- […] they spun all right, or so it seemed, and hit the wall all right, or so it seemed, but bottom line was this: The stirring of the dice was merely cackling, the cubes artfully framed so that the spots in the kid's fists showed 4‐4 up‐right and weren't really rattled but rather, held in control by the pinky, forefinger and thumb; […]2015, Jack Engelhard, The Prince of Dice, page 11:
- Derived terms
- cackle bladder, cackle-bladder, cackle fruit, cackler, cackling goose, cacklingly
- Related terms
- cluck