fangle
/ˈfæŋ.ɡəl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A foolish innovation; a gewgaw; a trifling ornament.
Example Sentences
- "[…]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,[…]"
- "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.”"
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: fangelen, *fangol, *fangel