garble

garble
\ \ [15] Garble used not to have its presentday negative connotations. It originally meant simply ‘cleanse, sift, cull’: ‘[At Alexandria] all sorts of spices be garbled after the bargain is made’, Richard Hakluyt, Voyages 1599.
\ \ Gradually, though, ‘taking out the worst’ and ‘selecting the best’ passed into ‘making an unfair selection’, ‘distorting by leaving things out’ and eventually simply ‘distorting meaning’.
\ \ The word itself has a convoluted pre-English history: English got it from Italian garbellare, which in turn came from Arabic gharbala ‘sift, select’, a term probably widespread in the commercial linguae francae of the Mediterranean seaboard in medieval and Renaissance times. This verb was a derivative of the Arabic noun ghirbāl ‘sieve’, which seems to have been based on the Latin verb crībellāre ‘seive’ – itself derived from crībellum, a diminutive form of crībum ‘seive’, which was related to Latin cernere ‘sift’ (source of English discern and discrete).
\ \ Cf.⇒ CERTAIN, DISCERN, DISCRETE

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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Synonyms:
(a quotation), , , , ,


Look at other dictionaries:

  • Garble — Gar ble, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Garbled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Garbling}.] [Formerly, to pick out, sort, OF. grabeler, for garbeler to examine precisely, garble spices, fr. LL. garbellare to sift; cf. Sp. garbillar to sift, garbillo a coarse sieve, L.… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Garble — Gar ble, n. 1. Refuse; rubbish. [Obs.] Wolcott. [1913 Webster] 2. pl. Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; also called {garblings}. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • garble — index cloak, falsify, misconstrue, misinterpret, misread Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • garble — (v.) early 15c., to inspect and remove refuse from (spices), from Anglo Fr. garbeler to sift (late 14c.), from M.L. and It. garbellare, from Arabic gharbala to sift and select spices, related to kirbal sieve, perhaps from L.L. cribellum, dim. of… …   Etymology dictionary

  • garble — *misrepresent, falsify, belie Analogous words: distort, contort, warp (see DEFORM): misinterpret, misconstrue (see affirmative verbs at EXPLAIN) …   New Dictionary of Synonyms

  • garble — [v] mix up, misrepresent belie, color, confuse, corrupt, distort, doctor, falsify, jumble, misinterpret, mislead, misquote, misstate, mutilate, obscure, pervert, slant, tamper with, twist, warp; concepts 59,63 Ant. decipher, order, pronounce,… …   New thesaurus

  • garble — ► VERB ▪ reproduce (a message or transmission) in a confused and distorted way. ► NOUN ▪ a garbled account or transmission. DERIVATIVES garbler noun. ORIGIN originally in the sense «sift out, cleanse»: from an Arabic word meaning «sift» …   English terms dictionary

  • garble — [gär′bəl] vt. garbled, garbling [ME garbelen < It garbellare, to sift < garbello, a sieve < Ar gharbāl, earlier ghirbāl < LL cribellum, small sieve, dim. of L cribrum, a sieve, akin to cernere: see CRITIC] 1. a) Obs. to sort by… …   English World dictionary

  • garble — garbleable, adj. garbler, n. /gahr beuhl/, v., garbled, garbling, n. v.t. 1. to confuse unintentionally or ignorantly; jumble: to garble instructions. 2. to make unfair or misleading selections from or arrangement of (fact, statements, writings,… …   Universalium

  • garble — verb a) To pick out such parts of as may serve a purpose; to mutilate; to pervert; as, to garble a quotation; to garble an account. The editor garbled the story. b) To make false by mutilation or addition …   Wiktionary

  • garble — gar•ble [[t]ˈgɑr bəl[/t]] v. bled, bling, n. 1) to confuse unintentionally or ignorantly; jumble: to garble instructions[/ex] 2) to make misleading selections from or arrangement of (fact, statements, writings, etc.); distort: to garble a… …   From formal English to slang

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