balderdash

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n balderdash trivial nonsense
    • ***
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • Balderdash A worthless mixture, especially of liquors. "Indeed beer, by a mixture of wine, hath lost both name and nature, and is called balderdash ."
    • Balderdash Senseless jargon; ribaldry; nonsense; trash.
    • v. t Balderdash To mix or adulterate, as liquors. "The wine merchants of Nice brew and balderdash , and even
      mix it with pigeon's dung and quicklime."
    • ***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n balderdash A jumbled mixture of frothy liquors.
    • n balderdash Senseless prate; an unmeaning or nonsensical jumble of words; trashy talk or writing.
    • n balderdash Synonyms See prattle, n.
    • balderdash To jumble and adulterate (liquors); hence, to mix with inferior ingredients; adulterate: with with before the adulterant: as, to balderdash wine with cider.
    • ***
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • n Balderdash bawl′dėr-dash idle senseless talk: anything jumbled together without judgment: obscene language or writing.
    • ***

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Of uncertain origin: cf. Dan. balder, noise, clatter, and E. dash,; hence, perhaps, unmeaning noise, then hodgepodge, mixture; or W. baldorduss, a prattling, baldordd, baldorddi, to prattle
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
Ety. dub.; but cf. the prov. Eng. balder, to use coarse language, Dut. balderen, to roar. Some adduce Welsh baldorrdus—baldordd, idle noisy talk.

Usage

In literature:

The whole story is balderdash.
"Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922" by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Now, how is it possible for people to be living among us here, who are fooled by such wretched balderdash as this?
"The Humbugs of the World" by P. T. Barnum
All that balderdash about the Wheel and the River of Fire.
"It Could Be Anything" by John Keith Laumer
Such a balderdash as that!
"The Brass Bound Box" by Evelyn Raymond
Aye, he's after some bit balderdash a' the time.
"Duncan Polite" by Marian Keith
Never I heard in Europe such balderdash.
"Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862" by Adam Gurowski
Such unscientific balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have estranged Damon and Pythias.
"The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25)" by Robert Louis Stevenson
All the balderdash that ever came into your head scattered over the world to bring shame on us!
"The Daltons, Volume II (of II) Or,Three Roads In Life" by Charles James Lever
Did he think I was the woman to be deceived by any such balderdash as that?
"Lost Man's Lane" by Anna Katharine Green
I'll cram him with the undigested balderdash.
"Sinister Street, vol. 1" by Compton Mackenzie
Page on page of this balderdash she would perpetrate, just as it issued from the convolutions of her silly brain.
"Seldwyla Folks" by Gottfried Keller
But all this is ugly balderdash, which expresses not a single character nor feature.
"The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction - German" by J. W. von Goethe
It does not appear that this sublime balderdash made much progress until the time of Plato.
"A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 10 (of 10)" by François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire)
Idle chatter and balderdash!
"The Deemster" by Hall Caine
Forgive all this egotistical balderdash; perhaps I think I am going to die, and want to leave my memoirs in a friend's hands.
"Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II (of II)" by Edmund Downey Charles James Lever
By God, he'll make a balderdash business of it!
"Romney" by C. Lewis Hind
The head-lines ranged from calm statements to blatant balderdash.
"What Will People Say?" by Rupert Hughes
Such balderdash is talked now-a-days about it.
"The Tree of Knowledge" by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds
Such stories are simply balderdash.
"Buffalo Land" by W. E. Webb
Now, as a matter of fact, this is all so much balderdash, so much falseness, so much artificial and indeed almost criminal nonsense.
"The Soul of Golf" by Percy Adolphus Vaile
***

In news:

Balderdash , an event at The Clayton House in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
swtimes.com
The Life and Times of Team Balderdash .
miaminewtimes.com
They certainly know that without an accompanying change in the ever-increasing amount of money the state demands the counties spend, the 2 percent tax cap is simply a bad joke, a diversion, a dead end , utter balderdash.
post-journal.com
They certainly know that without an accompanying change in the ever-increasing amount of money the state demands the counties spend, the 2 percent tax cap is simply a bad joke, a diversion, a dead end, utter balderdash.
post-journal.com
***

Related words