Cackle

Image courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery

Halloween is this week, of course. I wanted to feature a word appropriate to the occasion and finally decided on one: cackle [kak-uh l].  This word can be used as a verb, meaning "to laugh in a shrill, broken manner" or as a noun, meaning "the act or sound of cackling".  I like the word because it is descriptive, it's fun to say, and it is an example of onomatopoeia -- it sounds like what it means.  I came up with a couple of sentences using this week's word:

From the open door of the abandoned, ramshackle house 

came an eerie sound like a witch's cackle.

She grinned broadly and began to cackle, 

her whole body shaking with laughter.

How would you use the word cackle in a sentence?  What other "Halloween-y" words can you think of?