double talk en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Etymology
From double + talk. Compare Middle English twispeche, Old English twīspǣċ, twīsprǣċ.
Meanings
-
(uncountable) Doublespeak.
"Frammis on the Antispode": The doubletalk heading this paragraph takes the sting out of Mr. Ruark's comment, even if his gay colored foulard Sinatra bow tie didn't contradict his comment[.]
1947, Men's Wear, volume 114, page 90, column 1:
- (uncountable) Lies, especially in a formal political statement.
-
(uncountable) Speech which combines English (or some other language) and native-sounding gibberish for humorous effect.
[Sid] Caesar's vaudeville format included burlesques—in the nineteenth-century meaning of parody—featuring silent-film and film noir send-ups; Italian opera produced in Caesar's ad-libbed, faux-Italian double-talk;[…]
2014, Rick DesRochers, The Comic Offense from Vaudeville to Contemporary Comedy, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 15:
- (uncountable) A simple phonetic code with a regular infix that makes meaningful speech sound unintelligible.
- (uncountable) A situation when two people talk at the same time, causing overlapping audio signals.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| double-talk | alternative | lexicographic | |
| doubletalk | alternative | lexicographic |
Deriveds
Synonyms
gibberish · double Dutch · doublespeak · nonsense · jibber-jabber