Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To mix up or distort to such an extent as to make misleading or incomprehensible.
  • transitive verb To scramble (a signal or message), as by erroneous encoding or faulty transmission.
  • transitive verb Archaic To sort out; cull.
  • noun The act or an instance of garbling.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Anything that has been sifted, or from which the coarse parts have been removed.
  • noun Refuse separated from goods, as spices, drugs, etc.: in the following passage applied to a low fellow. Compare trash in a similar use.
  • To sift or bolt; free from dross or dirt.
  • Hence— To pick out the fine or valuable parts of; cull out and select the best or most suitable parts or specimens of; sort out; select and assort, rejecting the bad or least suitable: as, to garble spices; to garble coins. See garbling the coinage, below. [Now only in technical use.]
  • To sort out parts of for a purpose, especially a sinister purpose; mutilate so as to give a false impression; sophisticate; corrupt: as, a garbled account of an affair; a garbled text or writing.
  • Synonyms Misquote, etc. (see mutilate); pervert, misrepresent, falsify.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Refuse; rubbish.
  • noun Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; -- also called garblings.
  • transitive verb obsolete To sift or bolt, to separate the fine or valuable parts of from the coarse and useless parts, or from dros or dirt.
  • transitive verb To pick out such parts of as may serve a purpose; to mutilate; to pervert

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb obsolete To sift or bolt, to separate the fine or valuable parts of from the coarse and useless parts, or from dross or dirt; as, to garble spices.
  • verb To pick out such parts of as may serve a purpose; to mutilate; to pervert; as, to garble a quotation; to garble an account.
  • verb To make false by mutilation or addition
  • noun obsolete refuse; rubbish
  • noun obsolete Impurities separated from spices, drugs, etc.; garblings.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English garbelen, to inspect and remove refuse from spices, from Anglo-Norman garbeler, to sift, and from Medieval Latin garbellāre, both from Arabic g̣arbala, to select, from g̣irbāl, sieve, from Late Latin crībellum, diminutive of Latin crībrum; see krei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Anglo-Norman garbeler ("to sift"), from Medieval Latin garbellare, from Arabic غربل (ğárbala, "to sift").

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Examples

  • In a series of Tweets, Michael -- who turns 50 on Sunday -- told his troubled daughter that estranged ex-wife Dina had to "put the 'garble' aside and get on the same page" and join them all in therapy.

    RadarOnline RSS 2010

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

  • The unfortunate consequence for those on VoIP-enabled calls is what is referred to as latency, jitter and packet loss, and the resultant "garble" or dropped calls are quite annoying.

    CIO.in 2009

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