Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Nonsense; gibberish.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Confused talk; gibberish; nonsense of any kind.
- n. Any confused or nonsensical mixture of incongruous things.
Wiktionary
- n. nonsense, gobbledygook
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Nonsense; gibberish; confused and unmeaning talk; confused mixture.
Etymologies
- French (Wiktionary)
- French. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Some of the galimatias regarding Sotomayor's identity has to do with lack of understanding of Puerto Rico's confused legal status.”
Gregg Easterbrook: What Is The "National Origin" of Apple Pie?
“Yet I went not; but thou, of the briefness of thy wit, hast journeyed from place to place, on the faith of a dream, which was but an idle galimatias of sleep.”
“Our geography was galimatias, and book-keeping a crime: the people must not think they were on a level with the learned, and the children must do this and that.”
“_Afin que les entreprises honorables et les nobles aventures et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistrés et conservés, je vais traiter et raconter et inventer ung galimatias_.”
“_Afin que les entreprises honorables et les nobles aventures et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistres et conserves, je vais traiter et raconter et inventer ung galimatias. _”
“I fail to see," a dignified young lady stated, "what Cazaio, at least, has to do with your galimatias.”
“With the "Théologie familière" they exhibit a fair specimen of Saint-Cyran's galimatias and obscure asceticism.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
“As a matter of fact, idle talk and galimatias of the sort are in no wise literature.”
“Winckelmann announces his change of religion is a real galimatias, an unfortunate and confused document.”
“And the tomtit and canary have, no doubt, at least private agreement that the utterances of the nightingale are _galimatias_, while the carrion crow thinks the eagle a fool for dwelling so high and flying so much higher.”
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘galimatias’.
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250 More Spelling Words
More words for intermediate and advanced spellers.
melisma, dioecious, jejunity, sialogogue, zingiber, zendik, dithyramb, pneuma, kachina, agiotage, baedeker, sabulous and 238 more...
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phrontistery - g
from phrontistery.info
gabardine, gabbart, gabble, gabbro, gabelle, gabion, gablock, gad, gadarene, gadoid, gadroon, gadzookery and 439 more...
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Confusually
???????????????????
baffle, farrago, confound, befuddle, daze, disorient, discombobulate, stupefy, perplex, mystify, bewilder, boggle and 134 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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Don't Be a LAZY LINGUIST!
Words that remind me to:
Stop speaking with laze.
Exercise my intellect more than my tongue.
Choose Better Company.
This is not the "Ooh, I love the way these words ...splore, inoculate, dysphemism, bruit, mellifluous, winsome, rancor, aplomb, equivocate, palpable, equivocate, licentious and 128 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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Hodges English 10 Vocab
All the vocab will get in class over the year.
aberration, acrimony, adduce, anthropomorphous, caitiff, chagrin, clement, connote, deluge, deride, dissemble, edify and 213 more...
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hober's Words
anglosphere, wiki, slither, cylon, satchel, faustian, ragamuffin, frak, salient, fervid, tartan, snowclone and 299 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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Desserts of Random Palavery
Another of my Random Palavery lists, still an eclectic listing of terms that catch my eye and ear. It can't be helped. I am, (as a former partner phrased it) a word-bird.
chablis, ervy, keek, armiger, argand lamp, arblast, milch-cow, cow-calf units, durrus, tom noddy, low-bell, cargo cult and 139 more...
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Into the mix
A medley of mixtures, mostly ones where the constituents are still distinct. I tagged kinds of stew.
mixture, commixture, admixture, intermixture, intermingling, commingling, mingling, marriage, union, integration, syncretion, permutation and 129 more...
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Smart Words
polysemy, dichotomy, metonymy, parapraxis, synecdoche, prosopopeia, mimesis, schadenfreude, pulchritudinous, neolithic, limn, phantasmagoric and 138 more...
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Favorite English Words (1)
simpering, tenebrous, lugubrious, locution, cavalcade, mansuetude, bremsstrahlung, foofaraw, legerdemain, concinnity, soporific, alacrity and 97 more...
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Forthright's Words
aegrotat, almacantar, amphigory, barathrum, boustrophedon, cancrizans, carfax, colophon, delenda, diaglyph, enchiridion, episemon and 38 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for galimatias.
knitandpurl "It's all amphigories and dillydallying," she told herself, "rigamarole and bibble-babble, balderdash and fiddle-faddle, gibberish and galamatias."
Witch Grass by Raymond Queneau, translated by Barbara Wright, p 76 of the NYRB paperback Nov 6, 2010
hernesheir First appearance in English is in 1653, in Sir Thomas Urquhart’s translation of the works of the French author François Rabelais: “A Galimatia of Extravagant Conceits.�?
Note that this word, despite the later added "s", is singular, not plural. Jun 25, 2009
whichbe Gibberish; confused, meaningless jargon. (Luciferous Logolepsy) May 16, 2008