as in nonsense
language, behavior, or ideas that are absurd and contrary to good sense
a trendy London restaurant serving bizarre concoctions that anyone with a brain and a stomach would dismiss as codswallop
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of codswallop
Great story, total codswallop, says Skaife, who has pored through the archives and found zip.
—
William Booth, The Seattle Times, 26 Oct. 2018
And don’t forget codswallop, a word that sounds Shakespearean but was coined in 1959.
—Stephen Miller, WSJ, 29 May 2018
Mnuchin tried to double-talk this codswallop past SPW.
—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 19 May 2017
William Booth, The Seattle Times, 26 Oct. 2018
And don’t forget codswallop, a word that sounds Shakespearean but was coined in 1959.
—Stephen Miller, WSJ, 29 May 2018
Mnuchin tried to double-talk this codswallop past SPW.
—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 19 May 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for codswallop
Noun
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But when real users interact with it, the system collapses, generating nonsense or failing to handle inputs that deviate from the demo script.—
Albert Lie,
Forbes.com,
4 Apr. 2025
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Slapping down Putin should mean something, but that pronouncement, like everything Trump utters, is undercut by him spouting nonsense, including about a third term, which his press secretary laughed off yesterday.—
New York Daily News Editorial Board,
New York Daily News,
1 Apr. 2025
Noun
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The site was first excavated beginning in 1995, and in 2018, scientists began collecting, analyzing and radiocarbon dating fossils unearthed from El Gigante rubbish piles.—
GrrlScientist,
Forbes,
13 Mar. 2025
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Last year, a dumpster diver in Hudson, New York, stumbled upon an extraordinary find: An 18th-century pen-and-ink sketch by English portraitist George Romney was hidden amid the rubbish.—
Eli Wizevich,
Smithsonian Magazine,
28 Feb. 2025
Noun
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The organization also sampled 25 different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organic compounds that form when oil, wood or garbage burns.—
Corinne Purtill,
Los Angeles Times,
28 Mar. 2025
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Hazardous waste was being dumped into landfills along with household garbage and was often incinerated, which in turn sent the toxic materials into the atmosphere.—
Julia Jacobo,
ABC News,
26 Mar. 2025
Noun
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The property also grows its own herbs, greens, nuts, berries, and edible flowers.—
Bianca Salonga,
Forbes,
6 Jan. 2025
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Focus on whole foods like fruits, leafy green vegetables, fatty fish, nuts, and seeds.—
Lindsay Curtis,
Health,
5 Jan. 2025
Noun
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American Airlines is giving Midwesterners a new way to escape the winter blahs.—
Brandon Withrow,
Travel + Leisure,
20 Feb. 2025
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The post-election blahs are endemic across the big three cable news outlets, but the viewership numbers of individual networks can drop farther when the candidate seen as their ideological opposite wins.—
Rick Porter,
The Hollywood Reporter,
7 Dec. 2024
Noun
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These deaths come on the heels of the equally bizarre and jarring death of Adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) which brings us to four adult survivors dead, though Adult Travis died offscreen (sparking a really fascinating mystery that ended in sheer stupidity and disappointment).—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
5 Apr. 2025
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Also helpful is the show’s other winning quality: an enthusiastic embrace of its own stupidity.—
Nicholas Quah,
Vulture,
25 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Depp pushes over a cabinet with dishes, rips open her dress and makes a most unholy noise as her eyeballs go up in their sockets, tongue juts out and globs of drool pour from her mouth.—
Brian Truitt,
USA TODAY,
24 Dec. 2024
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Wipe the drool off your tank top, put some pants on, and get out your mama’s basement!—
Alex Perry,
The Enquirer,
6 Sep. 2024
Noun
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The public is simply not buying it and is looking for an alternative. Enough of the twaddle about how voting Democratic is voting to save democracy.—
Sun Sentinel Editorial Board,
Sun Sentinel,
1 Jan. 2024
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Perhaps News Nation is trying to assume the mantle of Fox News as a dispenser of right-wing twaddle, or (to be more charitable) of CNN as a sober neutral voice.—
Michael Hiltzik,
Los Angeles Times,
29 June 2023
Cite this Entry
“Codswallop.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/codswallop. Accessed 14 Apr. 2025.
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