Meanings
- uncountableNonsense, gobbledygook.
1 more example
[…] and the old lady listened in silence, solemnly, rather coldly, as if she thought such talk a good deal of a galimatias: she belonged to the old-fashioned school and held that a young lady was sufficiently catalogued when it was said that she had a dazzling complexion or the finest eyes in the world.
1888, Henry James, chapter 5, in The Reverberator, Macmillan and Co.Synonyms: absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce, bafflegab, balderdash, balls
- uncountableA confused mixture; hodgepodge.
Synonyms: bouillabaisse, bric-a-brac, catch-all, clamjamfrey, cocktail, rummage, salad, anthology
Synonyms & antonyms
nounNonsense, gobbledygook.
nounA confused mixture; hodgepodge.
Origin
- Frenchgalimatias
- Englishgalimatias
Borrowed from French galimatias, first attested in 1653 in Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of Rabelais's works.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Catalan galimaties
- galimatiesgobbledygook
Chinese Mandarin 胡言亂語 /胡言乱语
- 胡言亂語 /胡言乱语 (húyánluànyǔ)gobbledygook
Czech galimatyáš
- galimatyášgobbledygook
Dutch wartaal, onzin
- wartaalgobbledygook
- onzingobbledygook
- nonsensgobbledygook
- zevergobbledygook
French galimatias
- galimatiasgobbledygook
German Gallimathias
- Gallimathiasgobbledygook
Polish gmatwanina
- gmatwaninagobbledygook
Portuguese galimatias
- galimatiasgobbledygook
Romanian galimatias
- galimatiasgobbledygook
Russian галиматья́
- галиматья́ (galimatʹjá)gobbledygook
Spanish galimatías
- galimatíasgobbledygook
Swedish gallimatias
- gallimatiasgobbledygook
Cite this entry
galimatias. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/galimatias
“galimatias.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/galimatias. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “galimatias,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/galimatias.
Source: galimatias on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.