Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Matter regarding marvelous and incredible events inserted in a newspaper to fill space.
- noun Same as
balaam-box .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Cant, Cant A paragraph describing something wonderful, used to fill out a newspaper column; -- an allusion to the miracle of Balaam's ass speaking.
- noun (Print.) the receptacle for rejected articles.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word balaam.
Examples
-
The kind of "balaam," the stock repetitions and expletives at which Chaucer laughs in "Sir Thopas" -- a laugh which has been rather unjustly received as condemning the whole class of English romances -- is very evident even in the French texts.
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) George Saintsbury 1889
-
I must get a friend's assistance for the scientific part, and add some balaam of mine own (as printers 'devils say) to make up four or five pages.
Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) 1824
-
General Gourgaud, with some cautious balaam from mine honest friend, alarmed by a Highland Colonel, who had described Gourgaud as a _mauvais garçon_, famous fencer, marksman, and so forth.
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford Walter Scott 1801
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.