Etymology Dictionary

BALDERDASH,  poor stuff.  (Scand.)   Generally used now to signify weak talk, poor poetry, &c.   But it is most certain that it formerly was used also of adulterated or thin potations, or of frothy water; and, as a verb, to adulterate drink so as to weaken it.   'It is against my freehold, my inheritance,... To drink such balderdash, or bonny-clabber;' Ben Jonson, New Inn. Act i; see the whole passage.   'Mine is such a drench of balderdash;' Beaum. and Fletcher, Woman's Prize, iv. 5.   'What have you filled us here, balderdash?'   Chapman, May-day, iii. 4.   'Can wine or brandy receive any sanction by being balderdashed with two or three sorts of simple waters?'   Mandeville, on Hypochond. Dis. 1730, p. 279 (Todd's Johnson).   β. To dash is, in one sense, to mix wine with water (see Webster's Dictionary), and this accounts for the latter part of the word.   Dash is Scandinavian; and we may therefore look to Scandinavian for the other part of the word.   We find Dan. balder, noise, clatter; Swed. dial. ballra, to bellow, also to prattle, tattle; Icel. baldrast, ballrast, to make a clatter.   The Dan. daske is to slap, to flap; and dask is a slap, a dash.   Hence balderdash was most probably compounded (very like slap-dash) to express a hasty or unmeaning noise, a confused sound; whence, secondarily, a 'hodge-podge,' as in Halliwell; and generally, any mixture.   Still, if more were known of the word's history, its etymology would be all the clearer.   The Dan. balder has an excrescent d; the older form is shewn by Icel. ballra-sk, which is from the same source as bellow.   See Bellow and Dash.