balderdash
/ˈbɔːldə.dæʃ/
balderdash noun: senseless talk or writing; nonsense.
Noun
balderdash (uncountable)
- Senseless talk or writing; nonsense.
- Where, you cried in the name of Wonder, have you been able to gather together such an old fashioned Bundlement of Scientific Balderdash?1765, Henry Brooke, “TO THE RIGHT RESPECTABLE MY Ancient and well-beloved PATRON THE PUBLIC”, in The Fool of Quality, volume I, London, page xix
- [He] has the audacity to demand of us, for this twattle, a ‘speedy insertion and prompt pay.’ We neither insert nor purchase any stuff of the sort. There can be no doubt, however, that he would meet with a ready sale for all the balderdash he can scribble, at the office of either the ‘Rowdy-Dow,’...1844 December, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.”, in Southern Literary Messenger, volume 10, page 720
- Synonyms:
- bunk, drivel, folderol, piffle, poppycock, rubbish, twaddle, absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin
- A worthless mixture, especially of liquors.
- [T]hey would no more liue vnder the yoke of the Sea, or haue their heads waſht with his bubbly ſpume or Barbers balderdaſh, [...]1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, pages 7–8
- Indeede Beere, by a Mixture of Wine, it enjoyes approbation amongst some few (that hardly understand wherefore) but then it is no longer Beere, but hath lost both Name and Nature, and is called Balderdash (an Utopian denomination) …1637, John Taylor, Drinke and Welcome, London: Anne Griffin, “Beere,”
- Obscene language or writing.
- Trugge, therefore, (who has a foul mouth of his own, when he pleases) talked balderdash to Mrs. Sudberry, through the key-hole, which she did not answer, for, indeed, she seems a civil spoken woman, truly [...]1776, Samuel Jackson Pratt, chapter 72, in Liberal Opinions, upon Animals, Man, and Providence, volume 4, London: G. Robinson & J. Bew, page 46
- With me your work will be easy and your life happy, with him you will be a drudge and the lacquey of a drudge [...]: from me you will hear none but pious and edifying conversation; from them nothing but balderdash and blasphemy in an outlandish dialect [...]1795, Richard Cumberland, Henry, London: Charles Dilly, Volume I, Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 42
Verb
balderdash (third-person singular simple present balderdashes, present participle balderdashing, simple past and past participle balderdashed)
- To mix or adulterate.
- That which is made by the peasants, both red and white, is generally genuine: but the wine-merchants of Nice brew and balderdash, and even mix it with pigeons dung and quick-lime.1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, 2nd edition, London: R. Baldwin, Volume I, Letter 19, p. 309
- Synonyms:
- abase, adulter, admix, sophisticate, adulterate, adulterize, alloy, corrupt, bastardize, dash
balderdash meaning in Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
balderdash in Urdu
- الابلا, بکواس
balderdash in Bengali
- অর্থহীন কথা, বাজে বকা
balderdash in Malayalam
- nonsense, gibberish, rubbish
- നിരർത്ഥസംഭാഷണം, അസംബന്ധം, ശുദ്ധഅസംബന്ധം, അപാർത്ഥം, അർത്ഥമില്ലാത്തത്, ചവറ്
Synonyms of balderdash
- bunk
- drivel
- folderol
- piffle
- poppycock
- rubbish
- twaddle
- absurdity
- all my eye
- all my eye and Betty Martin
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of balderdash
| third-person singular present | balderdashes |
|---|---|
| present participle | balderdashing |
| past participle | balderdashed |
| past | balderdashed |
Origin of balderdash
Unknown, possibly from the early English drink of wine mixed with beer or water or other substances that was sold cheaply.
Questions about balderdash
- What does balderdash mean?
- Balderdash means senseless talk or writing; nonsense.
- What is balderdash in Urdu?
- Balderdash in Urdu is الابلا, بکواس. See Balderdash meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is balderdash?
- Balderdash can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce balderdash?
- Balderdash is pronounced /ˈbɔːldə.dæʃ/ (UK).
Words near balderdash in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: balderdash (page history and authors); balderdash (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); balderdash (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); balderdash (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-balderdash.wav.
Cite this entry: “balderdash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/balderdash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.