Flibbertigibbet

Flibbertigibbet (pronounced flib-er-tee-jib-it)

(1) A chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

(2) Someone who gossips (archaic)

(3) An imp; a fiend or goblin (archaic).

1440-1450: From the late Middle English flepergebet or flipergebet; a reduplicative compound of obscure origin thought almost certainly imitative of idle chatter and as a "nonsense word" meant to sound like fast talking, it was long applied only to women.  As the name of a devil or fiend it dates from circa 1600 (along with Frateretto, Hoberdidance & Tocobatto) and until the eighteenth century, more than a dozen alternative spellings existed although most were doubtlessly mere mistakes.  Although no etymologists appear to support the noting it might be an alternative source, many note the alteration of flibbergib (toady, sycophant) which could have been from the Old Norse fleipra-geipa(re) (babbler of nonsense). The construct of the wholly hypothetical Old Norse term would have been fleipra (a variant of fleipa (to babble, tattle)) + geipa (to talk nonsense, to boast) or geipare (one who speaks nonsense, a braggart).  Fleipa was the source of the "flip-" element in the English flippant; the original meaning of flibbergib was “chatterer”.  The alternative spelling is flibberty-gibbet.  Flibbertigibbet is a noun and flibbertigibbety & flibbertigibbish are (potentially useful) adjectives; the noun plural is flibbertigibbets.  There's no record of an adverb.

Shakespeare, language and respectability

All etymologists list flibbertigibbet as a pseudo-compound.  A compound is a word or word group made up from two or more parts that work together as a unit to express a specific concept whereas a pseudo-compound is a word which merely looks like it is a compound but, even if built from real words, the final meaning bears no relationship to the components.  Flibbertigibbet is simply an imitation of meaningless or babbling speech and it’s had many different spellings over the centuries, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listing fifteen, noting fibbergib is likely the original.  An overarching influence in the meaning was the patriarchy; although structurally gender-neutral, it was for centuries an exclusively feminine form, the linguistic paradigm apparently unable to conceive that boys and men could be flighty, scatter-brained chatterers.  The earliest known use dates from around 1450 as fleper-gebet and, about a century later, it was a respectable enough term for Bishop Hugh Latimer (circa 1487–1555) to use it in a sermon delivered before Edward VI (1537–1553; King of England and Ireland 1547-1553), though he wrote it as flybbergybe.

David Garrick (1717–1779) in the character of King Lear (Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, Scene 1).  An engraving (1761) by James McArdell (1729–1765) following Benjamin Wilson (1721–1788), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

It was the influence of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) which standardized the current spelling as flibbertigibbet, if not the meaning.  In King Lear (circa 1605) it’s the name of one of five fiends possessing Edgar and in this sense was used also to describe Puck, the mischievous fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (circa 1595).  Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) would later use Flibbertigibbet as the name of an impetuous urchin child in his novel Kenilworth (1821).  As a device, flibbertigibbet was said to be "imitative of meaningless or babbling speech" but when technology made audio recording possible, sound engineers found the word "rhubarb" repeated in rapid sequence by as few as four people with different voice tones almost exactly replicated background conversation and it was possible to create the illusion of a handful of people or dozens just by adjusting the volume.

A most respectable actor: Lindsay Lohan on stage in Speed-the-Plow (1998) by David Mamet (b 1947), London, October 2014.  Actors today owe a debt to David Garrick because he was the one who made being a thespian something respectable.

Shakespeare's influence on language, the stage and the structure of performance is well known but some of those who built or enhanced their reputations performing or interpreting his work also left their mark.  Although Garrick's work as a playwright has never been highly regarded, as a producer and theatre manager it was his innovations which transformed theatre in both England, Europe and ultimately North America.  It was Garrick who more than any other who was responsible for making a career on the stage, if not entirely respectable in the eyes of "the better classes", at least no longer disreputable.  In something which would have been remarkable only a generation or two earlier, his funeral was conducted at Westminster Abbey and he was buried in Poets' Corner.  London's (still exclusively male) Garrick Club is named after him and it retains a membership which includes many theatrical types.