Word Confusion: Angel versus Angle

Plural for the noun: angels

Third person present verb: angels
Past tense or past participle: angeled, angelled [British] Present participle: angeling, angelling [British]

Plural for the noun: angles
Gerund: angling

Third person present verb: angles
Past tense or past participle: angled
Present participle:

[Informal] Financial backer of an enterprise, typically in the theater

[Aviation] Unexplained radar echo

Person of exemplary conduct or virtue

A term of endearment

Used in approval when a person has been or is expected to be kind or willing to oblige

[Simile] Used to refer to a person’s outstanding beauty, qualities, or abilities

Proper noun:
A male or female given name ²

A surname​ originating as a nickname or, rarely, as a patronymic

[Baseball] A player on a team

Verb, transitive:
[Informal] To provide financial backing for ¹

A corner, especially, an external projection of an internal recess of a part of a building or other structure

Slope

Position from which something is viewed or along which it travels or acts

Particular way of approaching or considering an issue or problem

[Astrology] Each of the four mundane houses that extend counterclockwise from the cardinal points of the compass and often used with an adjective

Angle iron or a similar construction material made of another metal

[Archaic] A fishhook ²

Member of a Germanic people, originally inhabitants of what is now Schleswig-Holstein, who migrated to England in the 5th century AD, founding kingdoms in Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia. Gave their name to England and the English. ³

Verb, intransitive:
Move or be inclined at an angle ¹

Fish with rod and line ²

• Seek something desired by indirectly promoting someone to offer it

Seek something desired by indirectly prompting someone to offer it

Verb, transitive:
Direct or incline at an angle ¹

Present information to reflect a particular view or have a particular focus

She sang like an angel.

George, she looks like an angel,” he sighed.

We need some angel investors.

Proper noun:
“What is your first name, Mr Botibol? What does the A stand for?” “Angel,” he answered” (Dahl).

At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel.

Smith became an Angel as a result of a pre-season trade.

Verb, transitive:
Two wealthy friends angeled the Broadway revival of his show.

“Six years ago, he lost $20,000 in the first show he angelled, a turkey called Dance Night” (Zolotow, p 59).

“He looks around and finds that strangers has taken possession of his House, and his sweet angeled wife lays covered with sods beneath the ground” (Reed, p 176).

Poor guy, I can tell from the angle of his shoulders that he’s depressed.

From this angle, the sniper could see everything.

So that’s the angle you’re taking!

Verb, intransitive:
Ralph had begun to angle for an invitation.

Her husband was angling to get into the Cabinet.

Now, wait just wait a minute, what are you angling for?

He was angling for something, some bit of info he could sell.

Joe intends to angle for that big trout.

Verb, transitive:
You can always tell the military boys in the way they always angled their chairs to watch everyone in the room.

Anna angled her camera toward the tree.

He angled his chair so that he could watch her.

1. Old English engel from the ecclesiastical Latin from the Greek angelos meaning messenger.

   The Middle English engel was superseded by the Old French angele.

2. Used since the 16th century, from the Latin Angelus or an anglicized spelling of Ángel.

1. Late Middle English, from the Latin angulus meaning corner via the Old French.
2. Old English.
3. From the Latin Anglus; the plural is Angli meaning the people of Angul, a district of Schleswig, which is now in northern Germany, so called because of its shape. It’s of Germanic origin and related to the Old English angul ².