"skimble-skamble" meaning in All languages combined

See skimble-skamble on Wiktionary

Adjective [English]

IPA: /ˈskɪmb(ə)lˌskæmb(ə)l/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skimble-skamble.wav
Etymology: Reduplication of scamble (“to move about pushing and jostling, struggle for place or possession, scramble; to mangle”). The term was popularized by William Shakespeare’s use of it in the play Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597): see the quotation. Etymology templates: {{glossary|Reduplication}} Reduplication, {{circa2|1597|short=yes}} c. 1597 Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} skimble-skamble (not comparable)
  1. Confused, chaotic, disorderly, senseless. Tags: not-comparable Synonyms: absurd, skimble-scamble
    Sense id: en-skimble-skamble-en-adj-fE2yybJY Categories (other): English apophonic reduplications, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English apophonic reduplications: 56 44 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 52 48 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 57 43 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 58 42

Noun [English]

IPA: /ˈskɪmb(ə)lˌskæmb(ə)l/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skimble-skamble.wav
Etymology: Reduplication of scamble (“to move about pushing and jostling, struggle for place or possession, scramble; to mangle”). The term was popularized by William Shakespeare’s use of it in the play Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597): see the quotation. Etymology templates: {{glossary|Reduplication}} Reduplication, {{circa2|1597|short=yes}} c. 1597 Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} skimble-skamble (uncountable)
  1. Gibberish, mumbo-jumbo, nonsense. Tags: uncountable Synonyms: nonsense
    Sense id: en-skimble-skamble-en-noun-ZUH8MD4Z Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 52 48

Alternative forms

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          "text": "[S]ometime he angers me / With telling me of the Mouldwarp and the Ant, / Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, / And of a Dragon and a finles fiſh, / A clipwingd Griffin and a molten rauen, / A couching Leon and a ramping Cat, / And ſuch a deale of skimble ſcamble ſtuffe / As puts me from my faith.",
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Download raw JSONL data for skimble-skamble meaning in All languages combined (6.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (eaedd02 and 8fbd9e8). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.