Garble
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Confused or unintelligible speech. countable, uncountable
"The FCC says it decided to attempt standardization of VHF receivers after getting "thousands of complaints" from disgruntled boatmen who found their sets brought in mostly a lot of garble and static."
- 2 Refuse; rubbish. countable, obsolete, uncountable
- 3 Mutilation. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"Did not the lady smile upon the garble"
- 4 Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; garblings. countable, obsolete, uncountable
- 1 To pick out such parts (of a text) as may serve a purpose not intended by the original author; to mutilate; to pervert.
"to garble a quotation"
- 2 make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story wordnet
- 3 To make false by mutilation or addition.
"The editor garbled the story."
- 4 To corrupt; to make unreadable, incomprehensible, or unintelligible.
- 5 To sift or bolt; to separate the fine or valuable parts of (something) from the coarse and useless parts, or from dross or dirt. obsolete
"to garble spices"
Example
More examples"In a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that was in it, so it all applied, and with the utmost care, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design in publishing it."
Etymology
From Middle English garbelen, from Anglo-Norman garbeler (“to sift”), from Medieval Latin garbellare (or a similar Italian word), from Arabic غَرْبَلَ (ḡarbala, “to sift”).
Related phrases
More for "garble"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.