Word of the Day:

May 11, 2015

technobabble

noun TEK-nuh-bab-ul

What it Means

: technical jargon

Technobabble in Context

The manual for the computer program used so much technobabble that I was completely lost.

"Flitting comfortably between highbrow wit and gleeful crassness, Silicon Valley elicits more than its share of honest-to-goodness belly laughs, whether or not you’re up on the latest technobabble." - Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, April 5, 2015

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Did You Know?

Technobabble was formed by combining techno- (meaning "technical or technological") with babble ("continuous meaningless vocal sounds"), and unsurprisingly suggests language which sounds highly technical and is incomprehensible to the listener. Techno- as a combining form has given English speakers a number of interesting words, including but not limited to technocrat, technophile and technophobia, techno-thriller, technopreneur, and even technostructure ("the network of professionally skilled scientists, engineers, and administrators that tends to control the economy"). Techno- itself traces back to the same root word that gave us technology, namely the Greek word technē, meaning "art, craft, or practical skill."