Garbled

Podcast 1 · Introduction

Garbled

A documentary-style narration: origin, meaning, and feel.

Part of speech

adjective (past participle used as adjective)

Pronunciation

GAR-buld  /ˈɡɑːb(ə)ld/

Definition

Reproduced or transmitted in a confused and distorted way; difficult to understand due to corruption, errors, or poor transmission.

Plain meaning

Garbled means scrambled, distorted, or corrupted — a garbled message is hard to understand because the information has been jumbled or corrupted in transmission.

Register

Neutral and standard. Common in technical and everyday contexts for corrupted signals or distorted messages. Slightly more formal in the misleading-selection sense.