cackle
Americanverb (used without object)
-
cackles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cackled,
past participle, past
-
cackling
present participle
-
to utter a shrill, broken sound or cry, as of a hen.
-
to laugh in a shrill, broken manner.
-
to chatter noisily; prattle.
verb (used with object)
-
cackles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cackled,
past participle, past
-
cackling
present participle
noun
-
cackles
plural
-
the act or sound of cackling.
-
chatter; idle talk.
verb
-
(intr) (esp of a hen) to squawk with shrill notes
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(intr) to laugh or chatter raucously
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(tr) to utter in a cackling manner
noun
-
the noise or act of cackling
-
noisy chatter
-
informal to stop chattering; be quiet
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
cacklesimple
-
cacklessimple
-
have cackledperfect
-
has cackledperfect
-
am cacklingprogressive
-
are cacklingprogressive
-
is cacklingprogressive
-
have been cacklingperfect progressive
-
has been cacklingperfect progressive
Past
-
cackledsimple
-
had cackledperfect
-
was cacklingprogressive
-
were cacklingprogressive
-
had been cacklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cackle
1175–1225; Middle English cakelen; cognate with Dutch kakelen, Low German kakeln, Swedish kackla
Explanation
To cackle is to laugh in a loud, harsh way. Your dad's jokes might be so bad that they're funny, making you cackle every time. When you cackle, people hear you — it's annoying to sit in an otherwise quiet restaurant beside a table of people who talk and cackle raucously. The sound the cacklers make can also be called a cackle, a squawking laugh that a chicken might make. Experts think there may be a connection between cackle and the Middle Dutch word for "jaw," kake, but it's most likely to be imitative, a word that sounds just like the noise it describes.
Vocabulary lists containing cackle
The Crossover
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Ungifted
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"The Moustache" and "Who We Really Are"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Presiding over the baddies, Jared Leto’s blue-skinned, caped, literally boneheaded man-demon Skeletor is meant to be the fiercest of antagonists, but even his own henchmen find his signature evil cackle to be a bit laughable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
“The sound of her humiliating cackle still haunts me,” Morticia tells her daughter, recounting the experience of her own mom, Hester, reading one of her earlier manuscripts and shaming her for it.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2025
The men heard a cackle in their headsets as the radio signal to Mission Control faltered and then failed.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2025
At one point, Ohtani snapped his head back with a high-pitched cackle, giggling with a wide smile planted on his face.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2024
But I couldn’t bring out a wicked cackle, as I’d meant to do.
From "Grendel" by John Gardner
The red-headed fairy cackles, “Your hard work didn’t pay off!”
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2025
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” served up a symphony of social disaster over the course of 12 seasons and almost 24 years on HBO, wringing cackles and cringes from the misadventures of the serially inappropriate Larry David.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
All week I’d reveled in the cackles of leaf monkeys, hoots of gibbons, and barks of macaques, plus choruses of birds and frogs—all backed by the hums and whines of insects.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024
McKinney plays a misanthrope who lurks in an office district, using pinching fingers and the trick of perspective to “crush” businessmen’s heads as he cackles gleefully.
From New York Times ● May 24, 2022
The creature threw his head back in a laugh then, letting his airy cackles echo off the trees around them.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
A troupe of local performers enacted boxing and wrestling matches as the crowd cackled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
I laid on the couch and cackled like an idiot while my friends took no prisoners.
From Slate ● Jun. 26, 2025
We played board games, cackled at old movies and talked.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2023
Maybe you cackled it in response to his ridiculous back tattoo's beach side premiere.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2022
“Not doing nothing!” cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall.
From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling
I can practically hear those two cackling over their macchiatos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 7, 2026
Those stereotypes might bring to mind images of black hats, broomsticks and cackling over cauldrons, common in much media.
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2025
These fearsome carnivores, known for their splotchy fur and cackling “laughter,” form complicated social networks in which high-ranking females hold sway over males and other, less dominant females.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 29, 2024
Three cackling, swaggering 16-year-olds, the kind of girls you pray won’t sit near you on a plane, whose hollering, oblivious exuberance you’d cross a six-lane highway to avoid.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2024
And he zoomed away, cackling and shrieking, “Potty loves Loony!”
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
