word salad

plural word salads · alternative word-salad

1. uncountableusuallyhuman sciencesA nonsensical assemblage of words, typical of schizophrenia, Wernicke's aphasia, and some other mental disorders.

   All of his other verbal offerings were continuous word-salad—a mixture of made-up sounds, syllables, words, and incomplete phrases.

   2018, Bob Bertolino, PhD, Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Evidence-Based Approach, Springer Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 120

2. uncountableusuallyMeaningless text generated by a computer.

   Results will be shown for recognition, prediction, and separation of regular input from word salad (random sequences of words).

   2003, Bjørnar Tessem, Eighth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence: SCAI'03, IOS Press, →ISBN, page 107

3. uncountableusuallyAn intentionally nonsensical and voluminous statement.

   Chris Wallace asked @GovAbbott why he didn't complain about migrant abuse when Trump was President and he launched into word salad, with no real answer.

   2021, Jeremy Newberger, Twitter