CACKLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cackle mean? 

• CACKLE (noun)
  The noun CACKLE has 3 senses:

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

2. noisy talk

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

  Familiarity information: CACKLE used as a noun is uncommon.

• CACKLE (verb)
  The verb CACKLE has 3 senses:

1. talk or utter in a cackling manner

2. squawk shrilly and loudly, characteristic of hens

3. emit a loud, unpleasant kind of laughing

  Familiarity information: CACKLE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CACKLE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The sound made by a hen after laying an egg

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("cackle" is a kind of...):

cry (the characteristic utterance of an animal)

Derivation:

cackle (squawk shrilly and loudly, characteristic of hens)

cackly (like the cackles or squawks a hen makes especially after laying an egg)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Noisy talk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

cackle; chatter; yack; yak; yakety-yak

Hypernyms ("cackle" is a kind of...):

talk; talking (an exchange of ideas via conversation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cackle"):

blether; chin music; idle talk; prate; prattle (idle or foolish and irrelevant talk)

Derivation:

cackle (talk or utter in a cackling manner)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A loud laugh suggestive of a hen's cackle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("cackle" is a kind of...):

laugh; laughter (the sound of laughing)

Derivation:

cackle (emit a loud, unpleasant kind of laughing)

• CACKLE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they cackle    ... he / she / it cackles   
Past simple: cackled   
Past participle: cackled   
-ing form: cackling   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Talk or utter in a cackling manner

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

The women cackled when they saw the movie star step out of the limousine

Hypernyms (to "cackle" is one way to...):

mouth; speak; talk; utter; verbalise; verbalize (express in speech)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue cackle

Derivation:

cackle (noisy talk)

cackler (a hen that has just laid an egg and emits a shrill squawk)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Squawk shrilly and loudly, characteristic of hens

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "cackle" is one way to...):

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "cackle"):

gaggle (make a noise characteristic of a goose)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

cackle (the sound made by a hen after laying an egg)

cackler (any of various insectivorous Old World birds with a loud incessant song; in some classifications considered members of the family Muscicapidae)

cackler (a hen that has just laid an egg and emits a shrill squawk)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Emit a loud, unpleasant kind of laughing

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "cackle" is one way to...):

express joy; express mirth; laugh (produce laughter)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

cackle (a loud laugh suggestive of a hen's cackle)

 Context examples 

“But it is time young chickens went to roost when they dare cackle against their elders. It is late, Simon.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They went to bed quite early and slept soundly until daylight, when they were awakened by the crowing of a green cock that lived in the back yard of the Palace, and the cackling of a hen that had laid a green egg.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an' jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis." This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)