garboil

garboil

English

Etymology

From Old French garbouil, connected with Latin bullire (“to boil”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑː(ɹ)bɔɪl/

Noun

garboil (countable and uncountable, plural garboils)

1. (archaic) Disorder; uproar.
   • 1548, Nicholas Udall (translator), The First Tome or Volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the Newe Testamente, London: Edward Whitchurch, Luke 21, page clxv,

     With greate vproares & garboile shal there bee arisinges of nacion against nacion & royalme against royalme.

   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iii]:

     She’s dead, my queen:
     Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
     The garboils she awaked; at the last, best:
     See when and where she died.

   • 1975, Georgette Heyer, My Lord John, New York: Dutton, Chapter 1, p. 25,

     M. d’Espagne could not forgive the Earl the death of his friend Sir Simon Burley: that was what began the garboil!