codswallop
Noun
- nonsensical talk or writing
- Senseless talk or writing; nonsense; rubbish.
Intj
- Used to express disbelief: nonsense!; rubbish!
Origin / Etymology
Unknown. Attested from a 1959 episode of the UK TV series Hancock's Half Hour. The writers (Galton and Simpson) state that the phrase was in general use when the show was broadcast. A national TV appeal in the UK in 2006 failed to find earlier references, though a humorous newspaper column from 1947 does use the fictional name "Sir Aubrey Codswallop". Originally written (1963) codswallop; the spelling cod's wallop is later.
Various etymologies are proposed from some sense of cod, such as from cod (“joke, imitation”) + -s- + wallop (“beer”) (slang), hence “imitation beer” (with interconsonantal -s- to ease pronunciation of -dw-), or from cod (“scrotum, as in codpiece”) + -s- + wallop (“to hit”), hence “to hit (with) the testicle bag,” or from cod (“fish”), hence perhaps some part of the fish, as used in the fishing industry.
A frequently given etymology, although widely rejected as a folk etymology, derives it from Hiram Codd, British soft drink maker of the 1870s, known for the eponymous Codd-neck bottle, with the suggestion that codswallop is a derisive term for soft drinks by beer drinkers, from Codd’s + wallop (“beer”), thus sarcastically “Codd’s beer”. There is no evidence that early uses had this sense; the slang term wallop (“beer”) appeared after Codd’s lifetime, initial spellings (in print from 1963) do not reflect such a derivation (*Codd’s wallop and *coddswallop with -dd- are not found), and there is an 80-year gap between the proposed coinage and attestation.
This is also the name given to the wooden device placed over the neck of a codd bottle and given a push (wallop) to dislodge the marble in the neck of the bottle. The word has also been used to describe the process of opening a codd bottle.
Synonyms
applesauce, folderol, rubbish, trash, tripe, trumpery, wish-wash, BS, Bandini, Greek, Irish bull, absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, bafflegab, balderdash, balls, baloney, banana oil, baragouin, batcrap, batshit, bilgewater, blah, blather, blatherskite, bobbins, bollocks, bosh, bull, bull feathers, bullcrap, bulldust, bullshit, bullspeak, bunk, bunkum, bushwah, clamjamfrey, claptrap, cobblers, codswallop, crap, crock, crock of shit, double Dutch, double talk, doublespeak, drivel, eyewash, fiddle-faddle, flapdoodle, flim-flam, flizz, flummery, foolishness, footle, framis, fuckery, fuckry, fudge, galimatias, garbage, garble, gibber, gibberish, gobbledygook, gossip, guff, gup, hoax, hocus-pocus, hogswallop, hogwash, hokum, hooey, horse hockey, horse piss, horse puckey, horsefeathers, horseshit, humbug, jabber, jargon, jibber-jabber, jimjam, jive, junk, lallation, macaroni, malarkey, manure, meaninglessness, moonshine, mumbo jumbo, nertz, nonsense, pie in the sky, piffle, pigswill, poppycock, prattle, put-on, rhubarb, rhubarb rhubarb, rigmarole, rot, ruse, santorum, shit, shite, skimble-skamble, squit, stuff, stuff and nonsense, tommy-rot, tosh, tush, twaddle, wass, whiff-whaff, word salad
Scrabble Score: 18
codswallop: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordcodswallop: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
codswallop: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary