fangle meaning (obsolete): definition, etymology and quotations

fangle

verb

/ˈfæŋ.ɡəl/ · [ˈfæŋ.ɡl̩]

Etymology 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.

Dialectal, Obsolete 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 Milton, Of Prelatical Episcopacy:
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 remember upon each return to my own country their old dialect was so altered, that I could hardly understand the new.”

Dialectal, Obsolete To trim showily; entangle; hang about.

Dialectal, Obsolete To waste time; trifle.

Derived terms: newfangle, newfangled

fangle

noun

Etymology Back-formation from newfangled (adjective) as if new + fangle (noun). See newfangle.

Obsolete 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.

Derived terms: fingle-fangle