Meaning & use

mumbo-jumbo

noun·Everyday

Language or a ritual that is confusing, meaningless, or deliberately hard to understand.

See it in a sentence

The contract was full of legal mumbo-jumbo that nobody in the room could explain.

She dismissed the salesman's technical mumbo-jumbo and asked him to explain it simply.

A note on using this word

Mumbo-jumbo is informal and often used to criticize jargon that seems designed to confuse rather than clarify.

Words with a similar meaning

gibberishnonsense

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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