Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Slang Gobbledygook.
Wiktionary
- n. Language whose purpose is to obscure, confuse, or mislead.
Etymologies
- baffle + gab. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“At a time when daily business news coverage was stuffy and technical, Porter railed against what she termed the "bafflegab" lingo of finance, preferring to express investment and money concepts in words and imagery that didn't require readers to obtain a specialized education.”
“A touch of academic bafflegab is annoying but not fatal.”
“She educated the public about investments and money management, partially by eliminating “bafflegab,” her term for the cryptic terminology of government and finance, and she devoted much of her work to consumer advocacy.”
“LaPierre's red-meat statements to pro-gun activists -- cynical, incendiary bafflegab designed to anger up their hearts and open up their wallets -- has effects that go far beyond the NRA's own political and financial interests.”
Josh Sugarmann: Scott Roeder: Latest Guy With a Gun Who Made the Rules
“END and while we are on DISTORTION, here is yesterday's bafflegab”
“When all the bafflegab is stripped away, the decision let Stanley Williams die is nothing more than George W. Bush logic with a Hollywood veneer.”
“I just deleted about eight hundred words of bafflegab, so let me reduce it to the essence.”
“He and I will be talking in Quetzal, and that'll be bafflegab to you, so I might as well sign off for now.”
“I can't overstate the importance of sounding conversational before you launch into your pointless bafflegab.”
“The notion of bafflegab just stuck in my mind as the only way to really explain it.”
Adventures in Porkland: How Washington Wastes Your Money and Why They Won't Stop
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bafflegab’.
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This is not a list
you know that thing where the Eskimos have 50 words for snow?
little white lie, big lie, the Big Lie, economical with t..., muddy the waters, fabrication, deception, lies, damned lies..., façade, slander, omission, web of lies and 159 more...
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 161 more...
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Best words ever
The most awesome words.
abacot, aristology, autohagiography, backronym, bafflegab, bodacious, boustrophedonic, brobdingnagian, bromopnea, cachinnatory, dactylonomy, eagre and 26 more...
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Funny words
Words that have funny sounds or mean funny things
moose, noob, olivary, lubes, sapsuckers, mushroom-headed, grayish-pink, spatula-shaped, comely, slipstream, toad, bulb and 25 more...
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Nonsense
I've lost a word. Several months ago, I was reading a tart little essay online (the online counterpart of a British publication, but
*not* my beloved *LRB*, of that I'm pretty sure), and the ...twaddle, codswallop, bafflegab, gimcrackery, balderdash, poppycock, gibberish, tomfoolery, gobbledygook, buffoonery, hogwash, mumbo jumbo and 8 more...
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Carlos' Words
monstropolous, absquatulate
triffid, calque, pinguid, refulgent, monstropolous, Seanchaí, clinquant, Chryselephantine ..., peavey, milium, swage, Burtillon, Burtil... and 215 more...
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xyzprincess's Words
crabwise, virtu, peripatetic, idyll, trencherman, equivocate, flummery, hoi polloi, pixilated, albatross, wangle, bodacious and 170 more...
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#termsfromtoday
I'm always entertained by the terms @immerito tweets using the hashtag #termsfromtoday. As best I can tell, the tag emerged in mid 2011 after a brief flirtation with an alternate hashtag form. You'...
vortex ring state, gamine, airshed, drayage, judging rubric, shoulder graphic, diableries, exaptation, aggravant, anecdata, monégasques, vorticity and 304 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
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Tawkward
Verbal 'wtf' exchanges; odd moments of conversation and socializing.
somniloquy, bafflegab, syllepsis, sesquipedalian, whinge, divulge, anacoluthon, anaphora, sumpsimus, persiflage, eristic, overtones and 198 more...
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Learned words
Words which are highly likely to be found in the work of learned writers.
ailurophile, labyrinthine, lagniappe, colleague, anechoic, reglets, fluctuations, scalar, implicit, constitute, mortification, ambassadors and 629 more...
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akmed13's Words
time, spaceship, quantum mechanics, time traveller, bezonkers, strakh, path integrals, gorbfest, amphigory, amber, bicycle, amphisbaena and 358 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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Pop Culture
Comic strip character names and words, along with modern slang oddities.
rowrbazzle, pogo, rhinocerwurst, bitchin', cowabunga, joe btfsplk, churchy la femme, howland owl, porky pine, miss mamselle hep..., shmoo, unobtanium and 390 more...
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Word of Infinite Jest
quincunx, plosivity, prolix, aleatory, diagnate, appetitive, experialist, candidiatic, chapeau, perfidiously, antitheory, décolletage and 150 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bafflegab.
bilby "During today's press briefing White House press secretary, Dana Perino, spun herself into a knot with her own bafflegab in response to a Congress Committee investigative report released today." - Kevin Grandia, internet. Dec 11, 2007
twinnymerson This word reminds me of Haroun and the Sea of Stories... Jan 22, 2007