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double-talk
[duhb-uhl-tawk]
noun
speech using nonsense syllables along with words in a rapid patter.
deliberately evasive or ambiguous language.
When you try to get a straight answer, he gives you double-talk.
verb (used without object)
to engage in double-talk.
verb (used with object)
to accomplish or persuade by double-talk.
double talk
noun
rapid speech with a mixture of nonsense syllables and real words; gibberish
empty, deceptive, or ambiguous talk, esp by politicians
Other Word Forms
- double-talker noun
Word History and Origins
Origin of double-talk1
Idioms and Phrases
Meaningless speech, gibberish mixing real and invented words. For example, Some popular songs are actually based on double talk . [1930s]
Also, doublespeak . Deliberately ambiguous and evasive language. For example, I got tired of her double talk and demanded to know the true story , or His press secretary was very adept at doublespeak . This usage dates from the late 1940s, and the variant from about 1950.
Example Sentences
His double-talk and verbal whiplash were stunning in its ineffectiveness, and instead of paving a way forward, left a trail of smoke.
He exposed double-talk, pointed out hypocrisy and could draw laughter with a wide-eyed look of incredulousness or fear.
Dressed up in an inexhaustible supply of euphemistic rhetoric and double-talk, such immoral policies are stunning to see in real time.
If his pre-prison projects were almost entirely freestyled, these songs are more tightly written, honoring the fallen, indicting the double-talk of the industry, powered by the energy of a bowstring being pulled back for a half-decade.
Instead, the orchestration of the House objections was a story of shrewd salesmanship and calculated double-talk, set against a backdrop of demographic change across the country that has widened the gulf between the parties.
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