mumbo jumbo
21
8.3
- noun
- /ˈmʌmboʊ ˈdʒʌmboʊ/
- Informal
:
galimatías
- She dismissed his explanation as mere mumbo jumbo that lacked any real substance.
- legal mumbo jumbo
- a lot of mumbo jumbo
- technical mumbo jumbo
But anyway, this all sounds like mumbo jumbo and you might think it is.
- But anyway, this all sounds like mumbo jumbo and you might think it is.
- He talks in this sort of Californian mumbo jumbo.
- So all that stuff you're hearing is a bunch of mumbo jumbo picking on the Patriots for being great, FYI.
- I remember being like that's mumbo jumbo.
- You know, all this psychiatric bollocks mumbo jumbo, It's crap.
- And so I had in my mind that all this therapy stuff is mumbo jumbo, you know, And so there was a, there was a block, there was a resistance to that.
- And so I had in my mind that, you know, all this therapy stuff is mumbo jumbo, you know, and so there was a, there was a block, there was a resistance to that.
Examples
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But anyway, this all sounds like mumbo jumbo and you might think it is.
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Well, you yanks and your therapy, it's a load of touchy-feely mumbo jumbo.
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You know, you can use all the lawyer mumbo-jumbo you want, - this still was no attack.
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I too can write mumbo-jumbo like on those pages.
Blog text (29) -
I-I say we just forget about all that contract mumbo jumbo.
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You really believe in that mumbo jumbo?
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Some kind of religious mumbo jumbo.
Fiction book (1992) -
Spare me the new age mumbo jumbo.
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All the legal and accounting mumbo jumbo won't explain this away.
Blog text (12) -
Cut the mumbo jumbo.
Synonyms
578
2.5
Words or ideas that do not make sense
265
7.0
Words that sound impressive but have little real meaning
45
7.2
Speech or writing that does not make sense
13
8.8
Talk that is not true and tries to trick people
13
9.5
Talk that uses confusing psychology words without real meaning
12
8.7
Making something unclear or hard to understand on purpose
9
9.9
Confusing speech or writing full of technical words that most people cannot understand
6
9.0
Confusing speech that hides the truth, often to avoid a direct answer
1
9.9
Talk that is false and meant to fool or impress people
1
9.8
Language that is hard to understand because it uses many difficult words or nonsense
1
9.6
Talk that tries to trick people with false statements
Ceremonies that are showy, seem fake, and have no real meaning
Unclear, complicated ideas that are hard to understand and not practical
Antonyms
How Meaningless
Surface Forms
Morphology
mumbo + jumbo
The overall meaning ('confusing or meaningless language/ritual') is not derivable from the parts: 'mumbo' has no transparent lexical meaning in English and 'jumbo' means 'large', which does not suggest 'nonsense'. The phrase is an idiom with uncertain etymology and unpredictable semantics, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would not reliably infer its meaning.
Etymology
Mumbo jumbo may come from a West African masked figure used in old ceremonies, where strange words and masks made people puzzled. So the name began to be used for any 'confusing' or 'meaningless' talk or ritual.