garble

Anglo-Norman garbeler (“to sift”), from Medieval Latin garbellare, from Arabic غَرْبَلَ‎ (ḡarbala, “to sift”).

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)bəl

garble (third-person singular simple present garbles, present participle garbling, simple past and past participle garbled)

1. (obsolete) To sift or bolt, to separate the fine or valuable parts of from the coarse and useless parts, or from dross or dirt

   to garble spices

2. To pick out such parts (of a text) as may serve a purpose; to mutilate; to pervert

   to garble a quotation

   to garble an account

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, The Author's Preface:

     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.

3. To make false by mutilation or addition

   The editor garbled the story.

• garbley gook

garble (countable and uncountable, plural garbles)

1. Confused or unintelligible speech.
   • 1976, Boating (volume 40, numbers 1-2, page 152)

     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. (obsolete) Refuse; rubbish.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wolcott to this entry?)

3. (obsolete) Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; garblings.

• garble in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• garble in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Gabler, Grable, garbel