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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

bafflegab en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈbæfəlɡæb/
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From baffle + gab, coined 1952.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) Pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language, especially legal or bureaucratic jargon.
    • Toss in a few technical terms that most people don't understand—"stochastic" this, "regression" that—and you can use people's justified respect for math and science to get them nodding along. This is granularity as bafflegab. 2015 September 29, Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Crown, →ISBN:
    • Teachout has a gift for slicing through the bafflegab and revealing that the grifter's patter disguises nothing more than unimaginative, sociopathic scams. 2020 July 29, Cory Doctorow, “Break 'Em Up”, in Pluralistic, retrieved 02 Aug 2020:

Synonyms

gobbledygook

bafflegab en · VERB

Pronunciation

  • /ˈbæfəlɡæb/
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From baffle + gab, coined 1952.

Meanings

  1. (rare) To use pretentious, incomprehensible, or overly technical language.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
bafflegabbed Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
bafflegabbed Tense=Past lexicographic
bafflegabs Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
bafflegabbing Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic