Added 8 October 2026
gibberish
/ˈd͡ʒɪ.bə.ɹɪʃ/ noun
First recorded: mid 16th century Wiktionary
noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about gibberish at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
- Speech or writing that is unintelligible, incoherent or meaningless.
- Needlessly obscure or overly technical language.
- A language game, comparable to pig Latin, in which one inserts a nonsense syllable before the first vowel in each syllable of a word.
adjective
Origin
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.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)