Words / B / General

balderdash

noun/ˈbɔːldədæʃ/

C1CEFR level
74/100Rarity: rare
InformalRegister

Senseless, absurd nonsense.

The professor called the conspiracy theory pure balderdash and moved on.

Similar: nonsense, twaddle, drivel

Origin: Of uncertain origin, originally a jumbled mixture of drinks.

Topic: folly in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: folly