gibberish
/ˈd͡ʒɪ.bə.ɹɪʃ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.97 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A language game, comparable to pig Latin, in which one inserts a nonsense syllable before the first vowel in each syllable of a word.
Uncountable
adj
Example Sentences
- "Such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with."
- "Could it be, after all, that the whole story was true, and the writing on the sherd was not a forgery, or the invention of some crack-brained, long-forgotten individual? And if so, could it be that Leo was the man that She was waiting for - the dead man who was to be born again! Impossible! The whole thing was gibberish! Who ever heard of a man being born again?"
- "The Game of Thrones novels were best sellers without fleshed-out Dothraki; the languages in Star Wars, one of the most successful franchises ever, are mostly gibberish, even if Han Solo claims to understand Chewbacca’s bestial warbling."
Etymology
First attested mid-16th century. Origin obscure. Possibly from *gibber, of onomatopoeic origin imitating to the sound of chatter, possibly from or influenced by jabber, + -ish denoting the name of a language (compare English, Finnish, Spanish, etc.). The verb gibber, first attested circa 1600, is usually regarded as a back-formation from gibberish.