rigmarole









rigmarole


noun

  1. an elaborate or complicated procedure: to go through the rigmarole of a formal dinner.
  2. confused, incoherent, foolish, or meaningless talk.

noun

  1. any long complicated procedure
  2. a set of incoherent or pointless statements; garbled nonsense
n.

1736, “a long, rambling discourse,” apparently from an altered, Kentish colloquial survival of ragman roll “long list or catalogue” (1520s), in Middle English a long roll of verses descriptive of personal characters, used in a medieval game of chance called Rageman, perhaps from Anglo-French Ragemon le bon “Ragemon the good,” which was the heading on one set of the verses, referring to a character by that name. Sense transferred to “foolish activity or commotion” by 1939.

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