Skimble-skamble
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Gibberish, mumbo-jumbo, nonsense. uncountable
"Did you read his skimble-skamble about * * being at the head of his own profession, in the eyes of those who followed it?"
- 1 Confused, chaotic, disorderly, senseless. not-comparable
"[S]ometime he angers me / With telling me of the Mouldwarp and the Ant, / Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, / And of a Dragon and a finles fiſh, / A clipwingd Griffin and a molten rauen, / A couching Leon and a ramping Cat, / And ſuch a deale of skimble ſcamble ſtuffe / As puts me from my faith."
Example
More examples"[S]ometime he angers me / With telling me of the Mouldwarp and the Ant, / Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, / And of a Dragon and a finles fiſh, / A clipwingd Griffin and a molten rauen, / A couching Leon and a ramping Cat, / And ſuch a deale of skimble ſcamble ſtuffe / As puts me from my faith."
Etymology
Reduplication of scamble (“to move about pushing and jostling, struggle for place or possession, scramble; to mangle”). The term was popularized by William Shakespeare’s use of it in the play Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597): see the quotation.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.