Word.ws English Dictionary

Jabberwock

Jabberwock proper noun: a fantastical dreaded monster with flaming eyes.

Proper noun

the Jabberwock

  1. A fantastical dreaded monster with flaming eyes.
    • For it is of their nature that the jabberwocks of historical and antiquarian research burble in the tulgy wood of conjecture, flitting from one tum-tum tree to another.1936, J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, published 1976, page 6

Origin of Jabberwock

Nonsense word coined by British author and scholar Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky (q.v.), from the children's book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872). Carroll stated later, "The Anglo-Saxon word 'wocer' or 'wocor' signifies 'offspring' or 'fruit' [see oker]. Taking 'jabber' in its ordinary acceptation of 'excited and voluble discussion', this would give the meaning of 'the result of much excited and voluble discussion'..."

Questions about Jabberwock

What does Jabberwock mean?
Jabberwock means a fantastical dreaded monster with flaming eyes.
What part of speech is Jabberwock?
Jabberwock is a proper noun.

Words near Jabberwock in the dictionary

  1. jabberment
  2. jabbernowl
  3. jabbernowls
  4. jabbers
  5. jabbersome
  6. Jabberwock
  7. Jabberwockian
  8. jabberwockies
  9. jabberwocky
  10. jabbery
  11. jabbier

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Jabberwock (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-Jabberwock.oga.

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