kackle

English

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

kackle (third-person singular simple present kackles, present participle kackling, simple past and past participle kackled)

1. Alternative form of keckle
   • 1858, Charles Bushell, The rigger's guide, page 253:

     The following table also shows the size and length of the hitching for the eye, the size and length of the seizing, the length of rounding for kackling, and the length to kackle each cable.

   • 1892, J.W. Powell, Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution:

     The tip of the shaft has a whipping of sinew-braid 1¾ inches deep, “kackled” down on both edges, one end of the twine on each edge, so that the hitch made by one end crosses the round turn of the other, making in all twenty-six turns.

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

kackle (plural kackles)

1. (ornithology) A low raspy noise accompanied by head jerks, used to signal appeasement in some species.
   • 1977, The Emu:

     With mated birds, however, the preening bird was not aggressive and approached the partner with appeasement displays such as Head Jerks, Kackles and ambivalent movements.

   • 1999, Proceedings: Biological sciences, page 546:

     Females never revealed their sex during greetings; no females solicited copulations or produced calls other than 'kackles'.

   • 2012, Joseph Michael Forshaw, Mark Shephard, Grassfinches in Australia, page 181:

     Black-throated Finches give 'kackles' in the same situations as do Long-tailed Finches, and they appear to have the same appeasement function.

2. Alternative form of cackle
   • 1923, Thomas Martin Lindsay, Janet Ross, Letters of Principal T. M. Lindsay to Janet Ross, page 23:

     As soon as she got outside I heard her kackle, kackle, on to the pantry, where she said to the charwoman, “I never saw or read about or heard tell of such a man.”

   • 2015, James R. Columbia, Dispatches From Ruggles, page 88:

     While we were all kneeling in prayer these hens set up a kackle, kackle, kackle and made such a noise that it drowned the Voice of the brother in prayer.

Verb

kackle (third-person singular simple present kackles, present participle kackling, simple past and past participle kackled)

1. (ornithology) To make a kackle while jerking the head, signalling appeasement.
   • 2012, Joseph Michael Forshaw, Mark Shephard, Grassfinches in Australia, page 167:

     A bird 'kackling' while alighting may be ignored or greeted in return with weak 'kackles' and headjerks.

2. Alternative form of cackle
   • 1876, Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw), The Complete Works of Josh Billings, page 179:

     They don't kackle like the hen, nor kro like the rooster, nor holler like the peakok, nor scream like the goose, nor turk like the turkey; but they quack like a root dokter, and their bill resembles a vetenary surgeon's.

   • 1967, American Modeler:

     But when the dirt gets in the needle valve, and the Doldrum .60 crackles and kackles, and that sneaky warp comes back again — well, let it happen on enough week-ends — and you'll even consider putting up the storm windows.

   • 1986, Paul Salzman, English Prose Fiction 1558-1700: A Critical History, page 210:

     Moralizing statements are now only half serious—'We men are somewhat akin to laying Hens: for if we mind to doe any good, we presently proclaime and kackle it abroad . . .” (The Pursuit, p. 62)—as the world itself has become more chaotic.

   • 2012, Johan Kugelberg, Brad Pitt's Dog: Essays on Fame, Death, Punk:

     When we kackle like your uncle Sal at "Yey Whazzup Make Up" by Pssing Stones, the sublime recontextualized Rolling Stones' video (by StS, the same genius that brought us the "Shreds" Youtube^[sic] clips) that in its endgame brings us the hyper-reality of a bunch of absurd middle-aged rock dinosaurs chump-changing us with a cardboard-cut-out-cartoon-rebellion with even less fiber and nutrition than that Cinnamon Toast Crunch enema I mentioned earlier, we inch closer to a resolve of the problems brought by your sides aching of convulsive laughter upon repeated viewing of the Hitler lip where he finds out about Oasis canceling their tour.