mumbo jumbo
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /mʌmbəʊˈdʒʌmbəʊ/
ipa: /ˌmʌmboʊˈdʒʌmboʊ/
rhymes: -ʌmbəʊ
Forms: form: mumbo jumbos
form: mumbo-jumbo
Etymology: Probably from Mandinka maamajomboo (“mask; masked dancer”); or perhaps from /l/-vocalization in the words mumble and jumble.
Senses: examples: text: So likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his Eddas, must withdraw into dimness; and many an African Mumbo-Jumbo and Indian Pawpaw be utterly abolished.
ref: 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Symbols”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 3rd book, page 155:
glosses: A deity or other supernatural being said to have been worshipped by certain West African peoples; an idol.
examples: text: Rev. Quack's healing services are little more than mumbo jumbo.
text: "And what have you got to say? Another lot of mumbo-jumbo like your learned associates over there?"
ref: 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 91:
text: What is going on in all this religious mumbo-jumbo that is so foreign to the positivism of contemporary scholarship is a reenactment of the history of the soul before the beginning of terrestrial evolution.
ref: 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 179:
topics: lifestyle
religion
glosses: Any object of superstition; religious words and/or actions which are seen as superstitious or fraudulent.
examples: text: Football lingo is mumbo jumbo to me.
text: He escaped from that experience confounded, horrified, and conscious of degradation. Those infernal bandogs of the law had treated him as a piece of insensate property to their drivelling mumbo-jumbo, as if mere contact with it had robbed him of all rights to the dignity and integrity of his own ego.
ref: 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 89:
text: When it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, / Reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more / Than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
ref: 1985, Robert Hayden, “Frederick Douglass”, in Collected Poems:
text: He also said Britain would be “governed by science, not mumbo-jumbo” when looking at whether imported food was acceptable for consumption in the UK.
ref: 2020 February 3, Rowena Mason, “Boris Johnson hints at allowing GM food imports from US”, in The Guardian:
synonyms: word: absurdity
word: all my eye
word: all my eye and Betty Martin
word: applesauce
word: bafflegab
word: balderdash
word: balls
word: baloney
word: banana oil
word: Bandini
word: baragouin
word: batcrap
word: batshit
word: bilgewater
word: blah
word: blather
word: blatherskite
word: bobbins
word: bollocks
word: bosh
word: BS
word: bull
word: bullcrap
word: bulldust
word: bull feathers
word: bullshit
word: bullspeak
word: bunk
word: bunkum
word: bushwah
word: clamjamfrey
word: claptrap
word: cobblers
word: codswallop
word: crap
word: crock
word: crock of shit
word: double Dutch
word: double talk
word: doublespeak
word: dribble
word: drivel
word: eyewash
word: fiddle-faddle
word: flapdoodle
word: flim-flam
word: flizz
word: flummery
word: folderol
word: foolishness
word: footle
word: framis
word: fuckery
word: fuckry
word: fudge
word: galimatias
word: garbage
word: garble
word: gibber
word: gibberish
word: gobbledygook
word: gossip
word: Greek
word: guff
word: gup
word: hoax
word: hocus-pocus
word: hogwash
word: hokum
word: hooey
word: horsefeathers
word: horse hockey
word: horse piss
word: horse puckey
word: horseshit
word: humbug
word: Irish bull
word: jabber
word: jargon
word: jibber-jabber
word: jimjam
word: jive
word: junk
word: lallation
word: macaroni
word: malarkey
word: manure
word: meaninglessness
word: moonshine
word: mumbo jumbo
word: nertz
word: nonsense
word: pie in the sky
word: piffle
word: pigswill
word: poppycock
word: prattle
word: put-on
word: rhubarb
word: rhubarb rhubarb
word: rigmarole
word: rot
word: rubbish
word: ruse
word: santorum
word: shit
word: shite
word: skimble-skamble
word: squit
word: stuff
word: stuff and nonsense
word: tommy-rot
word: tosh
word: tush
word: trash
word: tripe
word: twaddle
word: wass
word: whiff-whaff
word: word salad
glosses: Any confusing or meaningless speech; nonsense, gibberish.
Derived terms: mumbo-jumbery