double talk

See also: doubletalk and double-talk

English

Alternative forms

• double-talk, doubletalk

Etymology

From double +‎ talk. Compare Middle English twispeche, Old English twīspǣċ, twīsprǣċ.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

double talk (uncountable)

1. Doublespeak.
   • 1947, Men's Wear, volume 114, page 90, column 1:

     "Frammis on the Antispode": The doubletalk heading this paragraph takes the sting out of Mr. Ruark's comment, even if his gay colored foulard Sinatra bow tie didn't contradict his comment[.]

2. Lies, especially in a formal political statement.
4. (comedy) Speech which combines English (or some other language) and native-sounding gibberish for humorous effect.
   • 2014, Rick DesRochers, The Comic Offense from Vaudeville to Contemporary Comedy, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 15:

     [Sid] Caesar's vaudeville format included burlesques—in the nineteenth-century meaning of parody—featuring silent-film and film noir send-ups; Italian opera produced in Caesar's ad-libbed, faux-Italian double-talk; […]

5. A simple phonetic code with a regular infix that makes meaningful speech sound unintelligible.
6. (telephony) A situation when two people talk at the same time, causing overlapping audio signals.

Synonyms

• doublespeak, double Dutch, gibberish, jibber-jabber, nonsense

Derived terms

• double talker

Further reading

• double-talk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia