bredouillement · noun — the omission of parts of words due to extremely rapid speech. It carries an Arena rating of 1504, earned across 26 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, bredouillement ranks #260 of 17,201 for Funniest Words, #675 of 17,165 for Most Satisfying to Say, #2,404 of 17,205 for The Improbable, #2,824 of 17,195 for Most Exacting Words.
Why “bredouillement” is a great word
BREDOUILLEMENT — [Noun] The omission or slurring of syllables or words due to excessively rapid or cluttered speech. From French bredouillement, from bredouiller (“to stammer, to mumble”). Unlike a stammer, which denotes involuntary repetitions or blocks, or cluttering, which names a broader fluency disorder, bredouillement is the specific casualty of haste, a linguistic shedding of ballast. It is the swallowed consonant of a hasty apology, the telescoped sentence of a secret too urgent to keep whole, the final word of an anecdote dissolving into breathless air—the audible signature of a mind outrunning the machinery of its mouth.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From French, from bredouiller (“to stammer, to mumble”).
noun
- The omission of parts of words due to extremely rapid speech
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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