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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Nonsense.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A jumbled mixture of frothy liquors.
  2. n. Senseless prate; an unmeaning or nonsensical jumble of words; trashy talk or writing.
  3. n. Synonyms See prattle, n.
  4. To jumble and adulterate (liquors); hence, to mix with inferior ingredients; adulterate: with with before the adulterant: as, to balderdash wine with cider.

Wiktionary

  1. n. senseless talk or writing; nonsense.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A worthless mixture, especially of liquors.
  2. n. Senseless jargon; ribaldry; nonsense; trash.
  3. v. To mix or adulterate, as liquors.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. trivial nonsense

Etymologies

  1. Possibly alteration of Medieval Latin balductum, posset.

Examples

  • “(I like that, and the word balderdash, and the ultimate insult ... cum bubble)”

    jenna-bear Diary Entry

  • “If I’ve been focusing on the latter in all the recent blather, by the way, it’s because I think the “you’re just a jealous poopy-head” balderdash is largely obvious and acknowledged, while the “meh, that’s so jejune” piffle is not.”

    Critique From HereNow

  • “I say, if that is the function, almost any human creature can learn to discharge it: fling out your orange-skin again; and save an incalculable labor, and an emission of nonsense and falsity, and electioneering beer and bribery and balderdash, which is terrible to think of, in deciding.”

    Latter-Day Pamphlets

  • “And I almost repeated balderdash, which is sure to lose me the hurried hairless vote.”

    Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XVIII No 1

  • “Stableford describes the argument set out in the book as "balderdash" and notes that Hartwell invited him to write this review despite knowing that he would probably be of this opinion.”

    The Smaller The Stakes, The Bigger The Cowards

  • “It was "balderdash" that the amnesty impeded the work of the attorney-general, which should use criminal law to carry out their work, he said.”

    ANC Daily News Briefing

  • “However, it was "balderdash" to say that a state of chaos existed.”

    ANC Daily News Briefing

  • “This "balderdash," as Gardner calls it, seem to be one of Gardner's own more recent fantasies.”

    Velikovsky's Deluge

  • “In other words, the book was the most unbridled kind of balderdash, founded on my callow recollections of the Green Chalybeate, -- not the least bit accurate, as I was afterward to discover, -- with all the good people exceedingly oratorical and the bad ones singularly epigrammatic and abandoned and obtuse.”

    The Cords of Vanity A Comedy of Shirking

  • “The reader will resent being troubled by this kind of balderdash, but Messrs. Clemenceau, Lloyd-George and Wilson may have resented it even more.”

    The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2

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Lists

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Comments

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  • AZwordy There was a lot about the obsolete use of the word referring to a mixture of liquors. The most often use is in writings of the 16th - 18th century meaning: senseless, stupid or exaggerated talk or writing; nonsense.
    The music was lovely, but the sermon was balderdash. Jun 14, 2009

  • brookdale_chick hust like my dad........
    BYE-BYE HAIR! Jul 19, 2008

  • oroboros A rapidly receding hairline. --Mensa word list winner 2006 Mar 2, 2007

  • greenery Scrooge-ish Jan 25, 2007

  • marco_nj For me, with flapping cheeks while quickly shaking your head from side to side. Dec 6, 2006

  • xamount Especially when you blurt it out all raspy and old-man-like. Dec 6, 2006

‘balderdash’ has been looked up 4173 times, loved by 11 people, added to 101 lists, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 17.