See pablum in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for pablum meaning in English (5.6kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "ine-pro",
"3": "*peh₂-"
},
"expansion": "",
"name": "root"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "la",
"3": "pābulum",
"4": "",
"5": "nourishment"
},
"expansion": "Latin pābulum (“nourishment”)",
"name": "bor"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Borrowed from Latin pābulum (“nourishment”), with the modern sense coming via the brand name Pablum.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "pablums",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-",
"2": "s"
},
"expansion": "pablum (usually uncountable, plural pablums)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1971, Jules Archer, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, 1968: Year of Crisis, J. Messner, page 94",
"text": "“If you want to be filled with pablum and tranquilizers,” Kennedy told crowds, “then don’t vote for me. I’m not going to give you any tired answers.[…]”",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1992 October 23, Ben Wattenberg, “Writer Likes Clinton”, in Daily Sentinel, page 2",
"text": "The Republican argument today is pablum, mush and saccharine. (Which exhausts my edible metaphors.)",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1996, David H. Gelernter, 1939, the Lost World of the Fair, New York: Avon Books, page 29",
"text": "Maybe we just don’t buy the pap, pablum and Pollyanification of the Futurama world view any longer because we are simply more sophisticated than the 1939ers.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008, James Boyle, The Public Domain",
"text": "To me, these points seem bland, boring, obvious—verging on tautology or pablum. To many believers in the worldview I have described, they are either straightforward heresy or a smokescreen for some real, underlying agenda—which is identified as communism, anarchism, or, somewhat confusingly, both.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2021 August 23, Josh Blackman, “Noah Feldman Indulges in Brett Kavanaugh Fan Fiction on Dobbs”, in Reason",
"text": "And [the Supreme Court] will have to elaborate on Justice Kennedy's nausea-inducing pablum about liberty and jurisprudences of doubt.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2022 July 27, Keith Schneider, “James Lovelock, Whose Gaia Theory Saw the Earth as Alive, Dies at 103”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "A few scientists greeted the hypothesis as a thoughtful way to explain how living systems influenced the planet. Many others, however, called it New Age pablum.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything overly bland or simplistic, especially speech or writing."
],
"id": "en-pablum-en-noun-UVwMaz6m",
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"bland",
"bland"
],
[
"simplistic",
"simplistic"
],
[
"speech",
"speech"
],
[
"writing",
"writing"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory) Anything overly bland or simplistic, especially speech or writing."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pabulum"
},
{
"word": "pap"
}
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"uncountable",
"usually"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"word": "單調乏味"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "dāndiào fáwèi",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "单调乏味"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"word": "puppu"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "bouillie"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Einheitsbrei"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "banálʹščina",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "бана́льщина"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "trivijalnost"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "banalnost"
},
{
"_dis1": "90 6 3",
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"word": "snack"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"glosses": [
"Nourishment."
],
"id": "en-pablum-en-noun-Uc5SdyaZ",
"links": [
[
"Nourishment",
"nourishment"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(dated) Nourishment."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pabulum"
}
],
"tags": [
"dated",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
},
{
"alt_of": [
{
"word": "Pablum"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "22 2 76",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1957, C. M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, Wolfbane",
"text": "The juice from its hydro-power dam was needed to supply meager light to a million homes and to cook the pablum for two million brand-new babies.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alternative letter-case form of Pablum"
],
"id": "en-pablum-en-noun-YuME5iP5",
"links": [
[
"Pablum",
"Pablum#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"alt-of",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈpæbləm/"
},
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pablum.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/84/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/84/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav.ogg",
"tags": [
"Southern-England"
],
"text": "Audio (Southern England)"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"pablum"
],
"word": "pablum"
}
{
"categories": [
"English 2-syllable words",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English terms borrowed from Latin",
"English terms derived from Latin",
"English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
"English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *peh₂-",
"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with audio links",
"English uncountable nouns"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "ine-pro",
"3": "*peh₂-"
},
"expansion": "",
"name": "root"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "la",
"3": "pābulum",
"4": "",
"5": "nourishment"
},
"expansion": "Latin pābulum (“nourishment”)",
"name": "bor"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Borrowed from Latin pābulum (“nourishment”), with the modern sense coming via the brand name Pablum.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "pablums",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-",
"2": "s"
},
"expansion": "pablum (usually uncountable, plural pablums)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English derogatory terms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1971, Jules Archer, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, 1968: Year of Crisis, J. Messner, page 94",
"text": "“If you want to be filled with pablum and tranquilizers,” Kennedy told crowds, “then don’t vote for me. I’m not going to give you any tired answers.[…]”",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1992 October 23, Ben Wattenberg, “Writer Likes Clinton”, in Daily Sentinel, page 2",
"text": "The Republican argument today is pablum, mush and saccharine. (Which exhausts my edible metaphors.)",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1996, David H. Gelernter, 1939, the Lost World of the Fair, New York: Avon Books, page 29",
"text": "Maybe we just don’t buy the pap, pablum and Pollyanification of the Futurama world view any longer because we are simply more sophisticated than the 1939ers.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008, James Boyle, The Public Domain",
"text": "To me, these points seem bland, boring, obvious—verging on tautology or pablum. To many believers in the worldview I have described, they are either straightforward heresy or a smokescreen for some real, underlying agenda—which is identified as communism, anarchism, or, somewhat confusingly, both.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2021 August 23, Josh Blackman, “Noah Feldman Indulges in Brett Kavanaugh Fan Fiction on Dobbs”, in Reason",
"text": "And [the Supreme Court] will have to elaborate on Justice Kennedy's nausea-inducing pablum about liberty and jurisprudences of doubt.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2022 July 27, Keith Schneider, “James Lovelock, Whose Gaia Theory Saw the Earth as Alive, Dies at 103”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "A few scientists greeted the hypothesis as a thoughtful way to explain how living systems influenced the planet. Many others, however, called it New Age pablum.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything overly bland or simplistic, especially speech or writing."
],
"links": [
[
"derogatory",
"derogatory"
],
[
"bland",
"bland"
],
[
"simplistic",
"simplistic"
],
[
"speech",
"speech"
],
[
"writing",
"writing"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(derogatory) Anything overly bland or simplistic, especially speech or writing."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pabulum"
},
{
"word": "pap"
}
],
"tags": [
"derogatory",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English dated terms"
],
"glosses": [
"Nourishment."
],
"links": [
[
"Nourishment",
"nourishment"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(dated) Nourishment."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "pabulum"
}
],
"tags": [
"dated",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
},
{
"alt_of": [
{
"word": "Pablum"
}
],
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1957, C. M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, Wolfbane",
"text": "The juice from its hydro-power dam was needed to supply meager light to a million homes and to cook the pablum for two million brand-new babies.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alternative letter-case form of Pablum"
],
"links": [
[
"Pablum",
"Pablum#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"alt-of",
"uncountable",
"usually"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈpæbləm/"
},
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pablum.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/84/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/84/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-pablum.wav.ogg",
"tags": [
"Southern-England"
],
"text": "Audio (Southern England)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"word": "單調乏味"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "dāndiào fáwèi",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "单调乏味"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"word": "puppu"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "bouillie"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Einheitsbrei"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "banálʹščina",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "бана́льщина"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "trivijalnost"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "banalnost"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "something bland or simplistic",
"word": "snack"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"pablum"
],
"word": "pablum"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-04 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (e9e0a99 and db5a844). 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.