word salad

English

Alternative forms

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:
      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.

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Further reading
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