garbled

adjective

gar·​bled ˈgär-bəld How to pronounce garbled (audio)
: made unclear or confusing : distorted or mixed up
a garbled message
garbled speech
… scientific cranks—those folks who concoct garbled and grandiose pseudo-scientific theories …Robert W. Wilson
A garbled group of syllables came over the speaker.Tom Clancy
But so much happened afterward to him that his five-day drive from Cracow to Warsaw soon became a garbled fading memory.Herman Wouk
Since the algorithm relies on the absolute accuracy of everything it has read to build the file, garbled information could lead to any number of mistakes.Paul C. Schuytema

Examples of garbled in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web But to a small band of extremists who have been fantasizing about another civil war for years, the film’s garbled politics and confused narrative may create not aversion but inspiration. David Gilbert, WIRED, 12 Apr. 2024 With each passing day, the signal grew weaker and the sentences more garbled. Robert Klara, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Feb. 2024 Related article One of the most iconic pieces of space exploration history goes up for auction On March 3, the team noticed that activity from one part of the flight data system stood out from the rest of the garbled data. Ashley Strickland, CNN, 14 Mar. 2024 The local actors hired to improvise based off a garbled script (also written by AI) wound up dishing on the disaster in interviews, and some have since leveraged their viral fame: that Oompa Loompa (real name Kristy Paterson) is selling Cameo greetings, for example. Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 13 Mar. 2024 Ruiz and most people in the 10 percent have mutations that leave their CFTR protein too garbled or incomplete to correct with any combination of fixer molecules. Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 7 Mar. 2024 Coull’s advertising materials included colorful art and lush descriptions of what sounded like an impressive theme park — but both were AI-generated, as was a garbled script handed out at the last minute to actors hired to play in-world characters. Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 1 Mar. 2024 The whole scheme appears aimed at winning ad revenue from the page views of people who unwittingly land on the site’s garbled content. Kate Knibbs, WIRED, 26 Feb. 2024 By the time Meiklejohn began to look, anyone with enough interest and patience to wade through a sea of garbled addresses could see money transfers between mysterious parties just beneath the surface of the blockchain’s obfuscation that, even at the time, were often worth small fortunes. Andy Greenberg, Ars Technica, 18 Jan. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'garbled.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1757, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of garbled was circa 1757

Dictionary Entries Near garbled

Cite this Entry

“Garbled.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garbled. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.

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