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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
cackle
I.verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "Oh we've got him now!" I cackled, dancing round the room.
▪ When I said this, he started cackling like a madman.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A police car radio cackled raucously.
▪ He kept laughing, cackling, making wild, insane remarks.
▪ In telling it, he cackled like a corncrake and waved his arms about.
▪ Mad machines gibbered, cackled, screeched insanely and blasted each other with sudden bursts of machine gun fire.
▪ She begins cackling, smacking her lips, like a child thinking of a turkey dinner.
▪ She is apt to cackle evilly.
▪ The hens clambered in, cackling with delight and greed.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ loud cackles of amusement
▪ There was a cackle from the old lady. "I know what you're after."
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And finally, there are the ones that seem little more than a cue for a really good cackle.
▪ How would you put his cackle in print or produce that grin with parentheses and colons?
▪ In his classes, he subjected students to the cackles of mechanical laugh boxes to test their reactions.
▪ Nor, it must be said, a hoot, chuckle, chortle, crow or cackle.
▪ Spider let out a weird high-pitched cackle that scared Miguel.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cackle

Cackle \Cac"kle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Cackled (-k'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Cackling.] [OE. cakelen; cf. LG. kakeln, D. kakelen, G. gackeln, gackern; all of imitative origin. Cf. Gagle, Cake to cackle.]

  1. To make a sharp, broken noise or cry, as a hen or goose does.

    When every goose is cackling.
    --Shak.

  2. To laugh with a broken noise, like the cackling of a hen or a goose; to giggle.
    --Arbuthnot.

  3. To talk in a silly manner; to prattle.
    --Johnson.

Cackle

Cackle \Cac"kle\, n.

  1. The sharp broken noise made by a goose or by a hen that has laid an egg.

    By her cackle saved the state.
    --Dryden.

  2. Idle talk; silly prattle.

    There is a buzz and cackle all around regarding the sermon.
    --Thackeray.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
cackle

early 13c., imitative (see cachinnation); perhaps partly based on Middle Dutch kake "jaw." Related: Cackled; cackling. As a noun from 1670s. Cackleberries, slang for "eggs" is first recorded 1880.

Wiktionary
cackle

n. 1 The cry of a hen or goose, especially when laying an egg 2 A laugh resembling the cry of a hen or goose. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To make a sharp, broken noise or cry, as a hen or goose does. 2 (context intransitive English) To laugh with a broken sound similar to a hen's cry.

WordNet
cackle
  1. v: talk or utter in a cackling manner; "The women cackled when they saw the movie star step out of the limousine"

  2. squawk shrilly and loudly, characteristic of hens

  3. emit a loud, unpleasant kind of laughing

cackle
  1. n: the sound made by a hen after laying an egg

  2. noisy talk [syn: yak, yack, yakety-yak, chatter]

  3. a loud laugh suggestive of a hen's cackle

Wikipedia
Cackle

Cackle may refer to:

  • Cackle Street (disambiguation), any of three hamlets in East Sussex
  • A form of laughter, often an evil laughter
  • The noise one makes whilst trying to sleep
  • Miss Cackle, a character in the novel The Worst Witch

Usage examples of "cackle".

Through the windows opposite shone an afterglow sky of ochre and pale-green, and from somewhere just outside came the low cackle of birds settling to roost along a cornicemy-nahs or starlings.

A familiar cackle came from the rock and the alchemist stepped out of it.

Tala had wadded around the arbalest and ran his fingers almost lovingly over the wooden stock and steel bow stave, and Grumuk cackled again.

He heard the door open, heard Burnfingers Begay talking and something cackle a reply.

Those bullets brought back futile answers, despite the angry cackle of Li Hoang, and the babbled shouts of Chun Laro.

The thing cackled with laughter and dumped what must have been the contents of a silverware drawer out onto the roadway, for there was the clatter and clang of cutlery as the contents of the drawer fell together below.

The awful laughter continued to cackle out of his throat, and from his eyes now the smoking whiteness spilled out and Fleam began to glow white and the blood boiled off her hot steel.

This cackle of geriatric cynicism ill became such a creature made for pleasure as Jeanne, but was pox not the emblematic fate of a creature made for pleasure and the price you paid for the atrocious mixture of corruption and innocence this child of the sun brought with her from the Antilles?

Crowds of people, scarfed and booted, have gathered around, laughing and applauding and stamping their feet in the snow, whooping the prancing buffoon through his mocking routines -- now, hobbling and cackling wildly, he is chasing all the young girls in the audience, making them squeal and clutch tight their coats and skirts.

From somewhere in the bush at his back he heard the strange bird the natives called a kookaburra emit its high-pitched cackle, sounding for all the world like demented laughter, and suddenly irritated, Tench thought longingly of his impending return to England.

Nor did the demented, sadistic cackling of Lizzie Flat-chest, crouched in her corner niche on the other side of the cabin, in any way comfort the memoryless woman.

Maggie recognized Old Mender, smiling and cackling, and Soaker, not looking frightened anymore, and Chamber-pot Emptier .

Campbell cackled out loud and poked MacNeill in the ribs with his crop.

The words were followed by another cackle, which Poulette then tried to pass off as a cough with some more throat-clearing noises.

The big red rooster in the purau tree napped his wings, crowed and regarded the ground with down-stretched neck and deep, explosive cackles.