"bafflegab" meaning in English

See bafflegab in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: baffle + gab, coined 1952. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|baffle|gab}} baffle + gab Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} bafflegab (uncountable)
  1. Pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language, especially legal or bureaucratic jargon. Tags: uncountable Synonyms: gobbledygook, nonsense
    Sense id: en-bafflegab-en-noun-DFzzt7sN Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English exocentric verb-noun compounds Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 60 40 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 63 37 Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 49 51

Verb

Forms: bafflegabs [present, singular, third-person], bafflegabbing [participle, present], bafflegabbed [participle, past], bafflegabbed [past]
Etymology: baffle + gab, coined 1952. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|baffle|gab}} baffle + gab Head templates: {{en-verb|++}} bafflegab (third-person singular simple present bafflegabs, present participle bafflegabbing, simple past and past participle bafflegabbed)
  1. (rare) To use pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language. Tags: rare
    Sense id: en-bafflegab-en-verb-wBYg4gNu Categories (other): English exocentric verb-noun compounds Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 49 51

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for bafflegab meaning in English (3.4kB)

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      "args": {
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        "2": "baffle",
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      "expansion": "baffle + gab",
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  "etymology_text": "baffle + gab, coined 1952.",
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "60 40",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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        {
          "_dis": "63 37",
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          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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          "_dis": "49 51",
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          "name": "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
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            "Compound terms",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2015 September 29, Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Crown",
          "text": "Toss in a few technical terms that most people don't understand—\"stochastic\" this, \"regression\" that—and you can use people's justified respect for math and science to get them nodding along. This is granularity as bafflegab.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 July 29, Cory Doctorow, “Break 'Em Up”, in Pluralistic, retrieved 2020-08-02",
          "text": "Teachout has a gift for slicing through the bafflegab and revealing that the grifter's patter disguises nothing more than unimaginative, sociopathic scams.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language, especially legal or bureaucratic jargon."
      ],
      "id": "en-bafflegab-en-noun-DFzzt7sN",
      "links": [
        [
          "Pretentious",
          "pretentious#English"
        ],
        [
          "incomprehensible",
          "incomprehensible#English"
        ],
        [
          "jargon",
          "jargon#English"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "gobbledygook"
        },
        {
          "word": "nonsense"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "other": "/ˈbæfəɫɡæb/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bafflegab"
}

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      "name": "compound"
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "baffle + gab, coined 1952.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "bafflegabs",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
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    },
    {
      "form": "bafflegabbing",
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        "participle",
        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "bafflegabbed",
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        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "bafflegabbed",
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        "past"
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
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          "_dis": "49 51",
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            "Verb-noun compounds",
            "Exocentric compounds",
            "Verb-object compounds",
            "Compound terms",
            "Terms by etymology"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To use pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language."
      ],
      "id": "en-bafflegab-en-verb-wBYg4gNu",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rare) To use pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "rare"
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    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "other": "/ˈbæfəɫɡæb/"
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  ],
  "word": "bafflegab"
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{
  "categories": [
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    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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    "English nouns",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "English verbs"
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      "args": {
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  "etymology_text": "baffle + gab, coined 1952.",
  "head_templates": [
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  "pos": "noun",
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    {
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        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
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        {
          "ref": "2015 September 29, Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Crown",
          "text": "Toss in a few technical terms that most people don't understand—\"stochastic\" this, \"regression\" that—and you can use people's justified respect for math and science to get them nodding along. This is granularity as bafflegab.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 July 29, Cory Doctorow, “Break 'Em Up”, in Pluralistic, retrieved 2020-08-02",
          "text": "Teachout has a gift for slicing through the bafflegab and revealing that the grifter's patter disguises nothing more than unimaginative, sociopathic scams.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language, especially legal or bureaucratic jargon."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "Pretentious",
          "pretentious#English"
        ],
        [
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          "incomprehensible#English"
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          "jargon",
          "jargon#English"
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      "tags": [
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  "sounds": [
    {
      "other": "/ˈbæfəɫɡæb/"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "gobbledygook"
    },
    {
      "word": "nonsense"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bafflegab"
}

{
  "categories": [
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    "English compound terms",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "baffle + gab, coined 1952.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "bafflegabs",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bafflegabbing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "bafflegabbed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "bafflegabbed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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  "head_templates": [
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with rare senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To use pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rare) To use pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "rare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "other": "/ˈbæfəɫɡæb/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bafflegab"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.