Word.ws English Dictionary

metagrobolism

metagrobolism noun: concealment, mystification, obfuscation.

Noun

metagrobolism (uncountable)

  1. (humorous, rare) Concealment, mystification, obfuscation.
    • [A]ll the autonomatic metagrobolism of the Romish Church, when tottering and emblustricated with the gibble-gabble gibberish of this odious error and heresy, is homocentrically poised.1653, François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Origin of metagrobolism

Coined in translation of Rabelais' works, from Middle French matagrabolisme, from matagraboliser (“mystify”). The first element is from Ancient Greek μάταιος (mátaios, “vain, futile”), but altered to assimilate to the prefix meta-, + French grabeler (“sift, examine closely, scrutinize”) + -isme.

Questions about metagrobolism

What does metagrobolism mean?
Metagrobolism means concealment, mystification, obfuscation.
What part of speech is metagrobolism?
Metagrobolism is a noun.

Words near metagrobolism in the dictionary

  1. metagraphy
  2. metagraywacke
  3. metagraywackes
  4. metagreywacke
  5. metagreywackes
  6. metagrobolism
  7. metagrobolize
  8. metagrobolized
  9. metagrobolizes
  10. metagrobolizing
  11. metagrobologist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: metagrobolism (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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Cite this entry: “metagrobolism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metagrobolism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.