pifflepafflewifflewaffle
to use words that make no sense
TRANSLATION
piffle = Quatsch, Unsinn, hohles Geschwätz; to talk piffle = Unsinn reden; waffle = Geschwafel, Geschwätz; to wiffle-waffle = schwafeln
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
"What answers Boris did give were worse than useless. He couldn’t explain why testing levels were still way down on what he had promised the week before: all he could offer was the promise of millions of tests soon. When exactly, he didn’t know. He PIFFLEPAFFLEWIFFLEWAFFLED about the self-employed."
The Guardian
Did you
know?
piffle-paffle & whiffle-waffle
reduplicative verb phrases
- to speak or write words that have no meaning or make no sense.
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ORIGIN
Reduplication refers to words formed through the repetition of sounds. Here some common examples:
boogie-woogie, chick-flick, double-trouble, hanky-panky, hocus-pocus, lovey-dovey, mumbo-jumbo, super-duper, teeny-weeny, chit-chat, flip-flop, ping-pong, ship-shape, sing-song, tick-tock, tip-top, mellow yellow, slim Jim, tic-tacs
PIFFLEPAFFLEWIFFLEWAFFLE is marvelous 'double redupication' giving great emphasis to the nonsense we are being increasingly subjected to these days.
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SYNONYMS for piffle & waffle
applesauce, balderdash, baloney, bilge, blah (also blah-blah), blarney, blather, blither, bosh, bull, bunk, bunkum, claptrap, codswallop [British], drivel, drool, fiddlesticks, flannel [British], flapdoodle, folly, foolishness, fudge, garbage, guff, hogwash, hokeypokey, hokum, hooey, horsefeathers [slang], humbug, humbuggery, malarkey, moonshine, muck, nonsense, nuts, poppycock, rot, rubbish, senselessness, silliness, stupidity, taradiddle, tommyrot, tosh, trash, trumpery, twaddle
