word salad

noun

1

psychology : unintelligible, extremely disorganized speech or writing manifested as a symptom of a mental disorder (such as schizophrenia)

Damage to Wernicke's area can result in the loss of semantic associations … . Trying to speak results in garbled, nonsensical juxtapositions that neuroscientists call "word salad".

—Duncan Graham-Rowe

2

: a string of empty, incoherent, unintelligible, or nonsensical words or comments

In the moments when the debate wasn't in circus form it seemed very conventional and very one-sided, with one candidate who could give complete, coherent and informed answers about issues and the other who specialized in word salad.

—Robert Schlesinger

… composed an essay that was a word salad of solemn academic jargon.

—George Will

Examples of word salad in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

With all of that said, here are Harris’s top word salads of her 2024 campaign. —Haisten Willis, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 2 Aug. 2024

Proponents of the settlement seek to change this by confusing the courts and all stakeholders with a new pay-for-play word salad. —Donna Lopiano, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2025

However, she wasn’t quite done serving up word salad. —Haisten Willis, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 2 Aug. 2024

Something to chew on: Should dinner be the smallest meal of the day? ARTS AND IDEAS Video Not just word salad Picture a high-end menu: sparse text, small font, silly-sounding dishes. —Natasha Frost, New York Times, 12 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1904, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for word salad

• ballad
• pallid
• valid

Medical Definition

word salad

noun

word sal·​ad -ˌsal-əd 

: a jumble of extremely incoherent speech as sometimes observed in schizophrenia