One way to hold this word: something caught between two hard things and forced through — it comes out the other side still in one piece, but bent and crushed into a shape it should never have. That is the test. If it snapped in two, English says broke. If it is still all there and all wrong, English says mangled.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary traces the verb to Middle English mangelen, from Anglo-Norman mangler / mahaigner, 'to cut to pieces' or 'to mutilate', and links it to mayhem. The word has meant 'forced out of shape' from the start.
Wiktionary 說這個動詞來自中古英文 mangelen，更早是盎格魯諾曼語的 mangler／mahaigner，意思是「切成碎塊、弄殘」，跟 mayhem 同一家。也就是說，「被外力弄得不成形」這件事，從一開始就寫在這個字裡了。
Wiktionary entry for mangle (verb, etymology 1), packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:753337921 — 'From Middle English mangelen, from Anglo-Norman mangler, mahangler... of Germanic origin, for which see mayhem.'
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