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taradiddle

noun
tar·​a·​did·​dle | \ ˌter-ə-ˈdi-dᔊl How to pronounce taradiddle (audio) , ˌta-rə-ˈdi-dᔊl, ˈter-ə-ˌdi-dᔊl, ˈta-rə-ˌdi-dᔊl\
variants: or tarradiddle

Definition of taradiddle

1 : fib
2 : pretentious nonsense
Synonyms & Antonyms Did You Know? Example Sentences Learn More about taradiddle

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Did You Know?

The true origin of taradiddle is unknown, but that doesn't mean you won't encounter a lot of balderdash about its history. Some folks try to connect it to the verb diddle (meaning "to cheat"), but that hasn’t been proven and may turn out to be poppycock. You may hear some tommyrot about it coming from the Old English verb didrian, which meant "to deceive," but that couldn’t be true unless didrian was somehow suddenly revived after eight or nine centuries of disuse. No one even knows when taradiddle was first used. It must have been long before it showed up in a 1796 dictionary of colloquial speech (where it was defined as a synonym of fib), but if we claimed we knew who said it first, we’d be dishing out pure applesauce.

Examples of taradiddle in a Sentence

his tales of adventure are peppered with tongue-in-cheek taradiddles and obvious fabrications regards literary deconstruction as so much tenure-track taradiddle

Recent Examples on the Web

 Some are esoteric but still used—like taradiddle, which the list notes was recently used by J.K. Rowling but saw more play in the work of Gilbert and Sullivan, HonorĂ© de Balzac and G.K. Chesterton. — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, "As “Dord” Shows, Being in the Dictionary Doesn’t Always Mean Something’s a Word," 28 Feb. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'taradiddle.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of taradiddle

circa 1796, in the meaning defined at sense 1

History and Etymology for taradiddle

origin unknown

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More from Merriam-Webster on taradiddle

Rhyming Dictionary: Words that rhyme with taradiddle

Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for taradiddle

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