Gobbledegook Definition from 601 Words

Gobbledegook definition and synonyms from the book, 601 Words You Need to Know to Pass Your Exam used in real context with images and illustrations. Learn the word, gobbledegook, and improve your advanced vocabulary in authentic context.

/ˈgɒb.ļ.di.guːk/ (noun)

Gobbledegook definition

(another spelling: gobbledygook) a special style of language which is usually too formal and therefore difficult to understand for the majority of people, jargon, meaningless and unintelligible language, mumbo-jumbo, waffle, gibberish, rubbish, nonsense, claptrap

Example

Gobbledegook refers to vocabulary or language that loses meaning or is difficult to understand because too many technical terms are used.

Stephen Pinker uses it brilliantly: “Academics in the softer fields dress up the trivial and obvious with the trappings of scientific sophistication, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin or pompous gobbledygook.”

Unlike ‘absurd’ and ‘ludicrous’, ‘gobbledygook’ was not borrowed into the English language or “built out of preexisting parts like prefixes, suffixes and roots” (i.e. morphemes) as Pinker puts it, but coined by a man infuriated with the kind of bureaucratic jargon used during WWII. This word is interesting for its novelty (only 70 years old!) and the sheer number of records documenting its inception, including a first-hand account from its creator-wordsmith, Maury Maverick.

Source of example: https://unravellingmag.com/