gibberish, n. and a.
(ˈdʒɪbərɪʃ, ˈgɪbərɪʃ)
Forms: 6–8 geb(b)-, gib(b)-, g(h)yb(b)rish, gib(b)r-, gib(b)eridge, -ige, (7 geberish, guibbridge, 8 gibbirish), 6– gibberish.
[? f. gibber v.1 (though that word appears later in our quots.), after names of langs. in -ish.]
A. n. Unintelligible speech belonging to no known language, and supposed to be of arbitrary invention; inarticulate chatter, jargon. Often applied contemptuously to blundering or ungrammatical language, to obscure and pretentious verbiage, etc.
| c 1554 Interl. Youth A ij b, What me thynke ye be clerkyshe For ye speake good gibbryshe. 1579 E. K. Ded. to Spenser's Shep. Cal., Other some..if they happen to here an olde word..crye out streightway, that we speak no English, but gibbrish. 1603 Harsnet Pop. Impost. 46 They are agreed of certaine uncouth non-significant terms which goe current among themselves as the Gipsies are of Gibridge, which none but themselves can spell without a paire of Spectacles. 1612 Drayton Polyolb. xii. 200 His little infant neere in childish gibbridge showes What addeth to his griefe. a 1656 Ussher Ann. vi. (1658) 523 They all the while crying quarter in their barbarous gibbridge. 1673 Dryden Marr. à la Mode ii. i, It may keep the field against a whole army of lawyers, and that in their own language, French gibberish. 1700 Paper to W. Penn Pref. A ij, The Books of the Quakers..were generally set at nought as Gibberish. 1748 Smollett Rod. Rand. xxx, He repeated some gibberish, which by the sound seemed to be Irish. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 197 Their language is in the patois of fraud; in the cant and gibberish of hypocrisy. 1803 Edin. Rev. II. 377 The admixture of the gibberish used by the negroes. 1835 Macaulay Ess., Mackintosh (1887) 350 A state trial was a murder preceded by the uttering of certain gibberish and the performance of certain mummeries. 1884 Stepniak in Contemp. Rev. Mar. 333 The aborigines speak an unintelligible gibberish. |
| Comb. 1653 Urquhart Rabelais ii. xi. The babling tattle, and fond fibs, seditiously raised between the gibblegablers, and Accursian gibberish-mongers. |
† B. adj. Of or pertaining to gibberish, expressed in gibberish; unintelligible, unmeaning.
Obs.| 1598 Florio, Balchi, a..roguish, gibbrish word, vsed for money. 1612 tr. Benvenuto's Passenger I iii 3 b, The frauds, deceits, lyes, gibbrish language of roagues. 1648 Milton Tenure Kings (1650) 3 That old entanglement of iniquity, their gibrish Lawes. a 1691 Baxter in Sir J. Stephen Eccl. Biog. (1850) II. 47 By his gibberish derision, persuading men that we deserve no other answer than such scorn and nonsense as beseemeth fools. 1704 Proclam. 24 Feb., in Lond. Gaz. No. 3996/1 The Key or Cypher, whereby Four Letters written in Gibbirish Language..may be..explained. 1764 Mem. G. Psalmanazar 173 A kind of gibberish prose and verse. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. I. 122 How oft I've bent me o'er her fire and smoke, To hear her [the gipsy's] gibberish tale so quaintly spoke. |
Hence
† ˈgibberish v. intr., to talk gibberish; also
trans., to speak the ‘gibberish’ of.
| 1577–86 Stanyhurst Descr. Irel. i. in Holinshed Chron., One demanded merilie whie Oneile..would not frame him⁓selfe to speake English? What (quoth the other) in a rage, thinkest thou that it standeth with Oneile his honor to writh his mouth in clattering English? and yet forsooth we must gag our iawes in gibbrishing Irish? 1625 Bp. R. Montagu App. Cæsar. xviii. 248 You understand not the state of Limbus Patrum, nor the depth of the Question, but scumme upon the surface, and gibberish you cannot tell for what. |