garble

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To mix up or distort to such an extent as to make misleading or incomprehensible: She garbled all the historical facts.
2. v. To scramble (a signal or message), as by erroneous encoding or faulty transmission.
3. v. Archaic To sort out; cull.
4. n. The act or an instance of garbling.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To sift or bolt; free from dross or dirt.
2. Hence— To pick out the fine or valuable parts of; cull out and select the best or most suitable parts or specimens of; sort out; select and assort, rejecting the bad or least suitable: as, to garble spices; to garble coins. See garbling the coinage, below. [Now only in technical use.]
3. To sort out parts of for a purpose, especially a sinister purpose; mutilate so as to give a false impression; sophisticate; corrupt: as, a garbled account of an affair; a garbled text or writing.
4. Synonyms Misquote, etc. (see mutilate); pervert, misrepresent, falsify.
5. n. Anything that has been sifted, or from which the coarse parts have been removed.
6. n. Refuse separated from goods, as spices, drugs, etc.: in the following passage applied to a low fellow. Compare trash in a similar use.

Wiktionary

1. v. obsolete To sift or bolt, to separate the fine or valuable parts of from the coarse and useless parts, or from dross or dirt; as, to garble spices.
2. v. To pick out such parts of as may serve a purpose; to mutilate; to pervert; as, to garble a quotation; to garble an account.
3. v. To make false by mutilation or addition
4. n. obsolete refuse; rubbish
5. n. obsolete Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; garblings.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. obsolete To sift or bolt, to separate the fine or valuable parts of from the coarse and useless parts, or from dros or dirt.
2. v. To pick out such parts of as may serve a purpose; to mutilate; to pervert
3. n. obsolete Refuse; rubbish.
4. n. Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; -- also called garblings.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story