word salad

English

Alternative forms

• word-salad

Etymology

From word +‎ salad, based on the notion that salads offer varied bulk, yet do not substantially provide sustained nutrition.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwɜː(ɹ)d ˈsæləd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

word salad (usually uncountable, plural word salads)

1. (psychiatry) A nonsensical assemblage of words, typical of schizophrenia, Wernicke's aphasia, and some other mental disorders.
   • 2018, Bob Bertolino, PhD, Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Evidence-Based Approach, Springer Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 120:

     All of his other verbal offerings were continuous word-salad—a mixture of made-up sounds, syllables, words, and incomplete phrases.

2. Meaningless text generated by a computer.
   • 2003, Bjørnar Tessem, Eighth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence: SCAI'03, IOS Press, →ISBN, page 107:

     Results will be shown for recognition, prediction, and separation of regular input from word salad (random sequences of words).

3. An intentionally nonsensical and voluminous statement.
   • 2021, Jeremy Newberger, Twitter‎^[1]:

     Chris Wallace asked @GovAbbott why he didn't complain about migrant abuse when Trump was President and he launched into word salad, with no real answer.

Antonyms

• wordsmithing

Translations

a nonsensical assemblage of words, typical of schizophrenia

• French: salade de mots f
• Russian: слове́сная окро́шка (ru) f (slovésnaja okróška), слове́сный сала́т m (slovésnyj salát)

See also

• word vomit

Further reading

• word salad on Wikipedia.Wikipedia