Word of the Day

: February 21, 2025

jabberwocky

noun JAB-er-wah-kee

What It Means

Jabberwocky refers to meaningless speech or writing.

// When the character gets angry or flustered, she talks in a sort of agitated jabberwocky that is really quite comical.

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jabberwocky in Context

"The British press now converted the book into their native tongue, that jabberwocky of bonkers hot takes and classist snark. Facts were wrenched out of context, complex emotions were reduced to cartoonish idiocy, innocent passages were hyped into outrages—and there were so many falsehoods." — J. R. Moehringer, The New Yorker, 15 May 2023

Did You Know?

In his poem titled "Jabberwocky," from Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll warned readers about a frightful beast:

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!

This nonsensical poem caught the public's fancy upon its publication in late 1871, and by the turn of the 20th century jabberwocky was being used as a generic term for meaningless speech or writing. The word bandersnatch has also seen some use as a general noun, with the meaning "a wildly grotesque or bizarre individual." It's a much rarer word than jabberwocky, though, and is entered only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.