Etymology Dictionary

GARBLE,  to select for a purpose, to mutilate or corrupt an account.  (F.,—Span.,—Arab.)   The old sense was 'to pick out,' or 'sort,' so as to get the best of a collection of things.   The statute 1 Rich. III, c. 11, was made 'for the remedie of the excessiue price and badnesse of bowstaues, which partly is growen because the merchants will not suffer any garbeling or sorting of them to be made.'   There was an officer called the Garbler of spices, whose business was to visit the shops, examine the spices, and garble, or make clean the same; mentioned an. 21 Jacob. c. 1.   See Blount's Nomolexicon, where it is further explained that 'garbling of spice, drugs, &c. (1 Jacob. cap. 19) is nothing but to purifie it from the dross and dirt that is mixed with it.'—O.F. garbeler*, not recorded, but a mere variant of the O.F. grabeller, 'to garbell spices, also to examine precisely, sift nearly;' Cot.   The same word as Span. garbillar, to sift, garble; Ital. garbellare, 'to garbell wares' (Florio); and Low Lat. garbellare, to sift, a word which occurs A.D. 1269 (Ducange).—Span. garbillo, a coarse sieve, sifter.—Pers. gharbíl, a sieve; Arab. ghirbál, a large sieve.   The word seems to be Arab. rather than Pers.; cf. Arab. gharbalat, sifting, searching; Rich. Dict. 1046.   ¶ We can hardly identify Span. garbillo with Span. cribillo, a small sieve, which is a corruption of Lat. cribellum, a small sieve; cf. Lat. cribellare, to sift.   Cribellum is a dimin. of cribrum, a sieve.—Lat. base cri-, a variant of cre-, as seen in cre-tum, supine of cernere, to separate; see Discreet, Discern.—✔SKAR, to separate; Fick, i. 811.   Der. garbl-er.   ➩ Perhaps garbage is from the same source; or resulted from a confusion of garble with O.F. garber, to collect (Roquefort).   See Garbage.