Meanings
- uncountableThoughtless or formulaic speech.
To be sure, he provides very many juicy examples of such duckspeak or bullshit...
2008, Richard J Alexander, Framing Discourse on the Environment: A Critical Discourse Approach3 more examples
Because his utterances detour through his brain - rather than, as in duckspeak, coming straight from the well-programmed larynx - he has Socratic doubts...
1989, Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarityI think you might just have had the courage to realize things I didn't know were there. That's really duckspeak, isn't it. I only thought I was happy.
2004, Joan Elizabeth Lloyd, Club FantasyThey have developed a particularly obnoxious form of ungood duckspeak. 'Friendly fire' and 'collateral damage' are only the most obvious examples...
2006, Stephen Ingle, The social and political thought of George Orwell
Origin
From duck + speak, coined by George Orwell in 1949 as part of the Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish ankkapuhe
- ankkapuhethoughtless speech
German Quaksprech
- Quaksprechthoughtless speech
Hungarian kacsabeszél
- kacsabeszélthoughtless speech
Italian ocoparlare
- ocoparlarethoughtless speech
Russian речекряк
- речекряк (rečekrjak)thoughtless speech
Cite this entry
duckspeak. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/duckspeak
“duckspeak.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/duckspeak. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “duckspeak,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/duckspeak.
Source: duckspeak on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.