[Etymology unknown: see below.]
† 1. ? Froth or frothy liquid. Obs.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, To Rdr. 11. Two blunderkins, hauing their braines stuft with nought but balder-dash. Ibid. (1599), Lent. Stuffe, 8. They would no more … have their heads washed with his bubbly spume or barbers balderdash.
† 2. A jumbled mixture of liquors, e.g., of milk and beer, beer and wine, brandy and mineral waters. Obs.
1611. Chapman, May-Day, III. Dram. Wks. 1873, II. 374. S’fut winesucker, what have you fild vs heere? baldredash?
1629. B. Jonson, New Inn, I. ii. Beer or butter-milk, mingled together … It is against my free-hold … To drink such balder-dash.
1637. J. Taylor (Water P.), Drink & Welc. (Worc.), Beer, by a mixture of wine hath lost both name and nature, and is called balderdash.
1693. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen., 198. Balderdash; of drink; Mixta Potio.
b. attrib. 1641. Heywood, Reader, here you’ll, etc., 6. Where sope hath fayl’d without, Balderdash wines within will worke no doubt.
1680. Revenge, v. 68. Ballderdash Wine.
3. transf. A senseless jumble of words; nonsense, trash, spoken or written.
1674. Marvell, Reh. Transp., II. 243. Did ever Divine rattle out such prophane Balderdash!
1721. Amherst, Terræ Filius, 257. Trap’s second-brew’d balderdash runs thus: Pyrrhus tells you [etc.].
1812. Edin. Rev., XX. 419. The balderdash which men must talk at popular meetings.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 351. I am almost ashamed to quote such nauseous balderdash.
1854. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 10. To defile the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. VII. v. 287. No end of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash.
4. dial. Filthy, obscene language or writing.
[Cf. 1849 and 1854 in 3.]
[From the evidence at present, the inference is that the current sense was transferred from 1 or 2, either with the notion of ‘frothy talk,’ or of ‘a senseless farrago’ or ‘jumble of words.’ Most etymologists have however assumed 3 to be the original sense, and sought its explanation in the obvious similarity of balder to dial. balder ‘to use coarse language,’ Du. balderen ‘to roar, thunder,’ Norwegian baldra, Icel. baldrast, ballrast ‘to make a clatter,’ and of -dash to the vb. dash in various senses. The Welsh baldorddus adj., f. baldordd ‘idle noisy talk, chatter,’ has also been adduced. Malone conjectured a reference to ‘the froth and foam made by barbers in dashing their balls backward and forward in hot water.’ Other conjectures may be found in Wedgwood, Skeat and E. Müller. Cf. also BALDUCTUM.]
