twaddle

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See also: Twaddle

English

WOTD – 16 May 2017

Alternative forms

Etymology

An alteration of twattle (1556), of unknown origin.[1][2]

Pronunciation

Noun

twaddle (countable and uncountable, plural twaddles)

  1. (uncountable) Empty or silly idle talk or writing; nonsense, rubbish.
    You're talking a load of twaddle. Get your facts straight, man!
    • 1886, A Conan Doyle, “The Science of Deduction”, in A Study in Scarlet (Beeton's Christmas Annual; 28th season), London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., November 1887, →OCLC; republished as A Study in Scarlet. A Detective Story, new edition, London: Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co., 1892, →OCLC, page 28:
      "What ineffable twaddle!" I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table; "I never read such rubbish in my life."
    • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part II, XX :
      I would rather be rude than to listen to twaddle from a man I’ve known.
    • 1918 June, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Prelude”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, chapter 12, page 66:
      It was her other self who had written that letter. It not only bored, it rather disgusted her real self. "Flippant and silly," said her real self. Yet she knew that she'd send it and she'd always write that kind of twaddle to Nan Pym.
  2. (countable) One who twaddles; a twaddler.

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

twaddle (third-person singular simple present twaddles, present participle twaddling, simple past and past participle twaddled)

  1. To talk or write nonsense; to prattle.
    • 1918, W B Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 181:
      To Edward […] he was terrible, nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing chair, smoking and twaddling.

Synonyms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “twaddle”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  2. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “twaddle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Further reading

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