Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Incomprehensible language.
  • noun A language game akin to pig Latin.
  • noun A game of jump rope with two ropes and frequently two jumpers.
  • noun colloquial Sex using a condom and the contraceptive pill at the same time.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

double (twice, i.e. more than) + Dutch For sense 1: The English, historically, found Dutch (albeit a fellow Western Germanic language) particularly difficult to understand, so anything that was completely incomprehensible would be double Dutch, i.e. twice as hard as Dutch. (Note that historically, "Dutch" could refer to German dialects, as well.)

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Examples

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Comments

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  • A double Dutch is something you just don't get.. It's like if a NASA scientist's telling you, a regular fella, how to launch a rocket somewhere.. Eventually, you might say: this is double Dutch! I just can't get wathever you're trying to say!!

    April 27, 2010

  • I met a double Duchess once. Well, twice.

    April 27, 2010

  • double dutch is getting caught between the upper and lower sections of a dutch door: bifurcated- a diabolical plot!

    April 27, 2010

  • New Amsterdam it's become much too much,

    'Til I have the possession of everything she touches,

    'Til I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches,

    'Til I speak double dutch to a real double duchess

    - From "New Amsterdam" by Elvis Costello

    April 28, 2010