Literary notes about cackle (AI summary)
In literature, the word cackle is employed to evoke a very specific kind of laugh—one that is harsh, raucous, and often tinged with derision or madness. It can describe both human and animal sounds, whether referring to the disparaging laugh of a character likened to an old woman ([1]) or the unsettling, almost demonic cry of a wild bird ([2]). Authors also use it to capture the rustic, unrefined quality of rural chatter, as when hens cackle in the yard, symbolizing both humor and a sort of natural, bawdy chorus ([3], [4]). In some contexts, the term underscores moments of irony or ridicule, suggesting that such laughter carries a charge of scorn or incredulity ([5], [6]). Thus, cackle becomes a powerful auditory device in literature, capable of conveying everything from comic abandon to ominous forewarning.
- "You cackle like an old woman, Galitsin; you would talk a cricket dumb.
— from The Black Cross by Olive M. (Olive Mary) Briggs - Then, with a suddenness that was appalling, the insane cackle of a woodrail shattered the silence with its demoniacal cries.
— from The Black Phantom by Leo E. (Leo Edward) Miller - If the hen did not cackle no one would know what she had been about.
— from A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs - The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - But men don't talk in this way, Ann: it's only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and cackle.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - “He has stopped Austria’s cackle and I fear it will be our turn next.”
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
