Editing Jabberwocky (section)

==Possible interpretations of words{{anchor|Glossary}}==
* [[Bandersnatch]]: A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.<ref name="HoS">{{cite book|author=Lewis Carroll|title=The Annotated Hunting of the Snark|others=edited with notes by [[Martin Gardner]], illustrations by Henry Holiday and others, introduction by [[Adam Gopnik]]|isbn=0-393-06242-2|publisher=W. W. Norton|edition=Definitive|year=2006|orig-year=1876}}</ref> A "bander" was also an archaic word for a "leader", suggesting that a "bandersnatch" might be an animal that hunts the leader of a group.<ref name="Penguin"/>
* [[wikt:beamish|Beamish]]: Radiantly beaming, happy, cheerful. Although Carroll may have believed he had coined this word, usage in 1530 is cited in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref name="ExplanatoryN">{{cite book|author=Carroll, Lewis|year=2009|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass|chapter=Explanatory notes|editor=Hunt, Peter|publisher=OUP Oxford|page=283|isbn=978-0-19-955829-2}} References the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] (1530).</ref>
* [[wikt:borogove|Borogove]]: Following the poem Humpty Dumpty says: {{"'}}borogove' is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live mop." In ''[[Mischmasch]]'' borogoves are described differently: "An extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials: lived on veal."<ref name="Penguin"/> In ''Hunting of the Snark'', Carroll says that the initial syllable of ''borogove'' is pronounced as in ''borrow'' rather than as in ''worry''.<ref name="HoS"/>
* [[wikt:brillig|Brillig]]: Following the poem, the character of Humpty Dumpty comments: {{"'}}Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon, the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."<ref name="AAW96"/> According to ''[[Mischmasch]]'', it is derived from the verb to ''bryl'' or ''broil''.
* [[wikt:burble|Burbled]]: In a letter of December 1877, Carroll notes that "burble" could be a mixture of the three verbs 'bleat', 'murmur', and 'warble', although he did not remember creating it.<ref name="ExplanatoryN"/><ref name="ReferenceA">Lewis Carroll, Letter to Maud Standen, December 1877</ref>
* [[wikt:chortle|Chortled]]: "Combination of 'chuckle' and 'snort'." ([[OED]])
* [[wikt:frabjous|Frabjous]]: Possibly a blend of "fair", "fabulous", and "joyous". Definition from ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', credited to Lewis Carroll.
* [[wikt:frumious|Frumious]]: Combination of "fuming" and "furious". In the Preface to ''The Hunting of the Snark'' Carroll comments, "[T]ake the two words 'fuming' and 'furious'. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards 'fuming', you will say 'fuming-furious'; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards 'furious', you will say 'furious-fuming'; but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say 'frumious'."<ref name="HoS"/>
* [[wikt:galumphing|Galumphing]]: Perhaps used in the poem as a blend of "gallop" and "triumphant".<ref name="ExplanatoryN"/> Used later by [[Rudyard Kipling|Kipling]], and cited by Webster as "To move with a clumsy and heavy tread"<ref>{{cite book|title=The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories|year=1991|publisher=Merriam Webster|page=247|isbn=0-87779-603-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ekrgc3RowTgC&q=galumphing+kipling&pg=PA269|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; And, Through the Looking-glass and what Alice Found There|year=1998|author=Lewis Carroll, Roger Lancelyn Green|publisher=John Tenniel Oxford University Press|page=269|isbn=978-0-19-283374-7}}</ref>
* [[Gimble]]: Humpty Dumpty comments that it means: "to make holes like a [[Gimlet (tool)|gimlet]]."<ref name="AAW96">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HAAn1XKaOJoC&q=%22To+make+holes+like+a+gimlet%22&pg=PA199|author=Carroll, Lewis|year=1998|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass|pages=198–199|publisher=Wordsworth Editions|isbn=1-85326-897-6}}</ref>
* [[wikt:gyre|Gyre]]: "To 'gyre' is to go round and round like a gyroscope."<ref name="AAW96"/> ''Gyre'' is entered in the [[OED]] from 1420, meaning a circular or spiral motion or form; especially a giant circular oceanic surface current. Carroll also wrote in ''[[Mischmasch]]'' that it meant to scratch like a dog.<ref name="Penguin"/> The ''g'' is pronounced like the /g/ in ''gold'', not like ''gem'' (since this was how "gyroscope" was pronounced in Carroll's day).<ref name="tlgp">From the preface to ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]''.</ref>
* [[wikt:Jabberwock|Jabberwock]]: When a class in the [[Girls' Latin School]] in Boston asked Carroll's permission to name their school magazine ''The Jabberwock'', he replied: "The [[Anglo-Saxon]] word 'wocer' or 'wocor' signifies 'offspring' or 'fruit'. Taking 'jabber' in its ordinary acceptation of 'excited and voluble discussion', this would give the meaning of 'the result of much excited and voluble discussion'..."<ref name="Penguin">[https://books.google.com/books?id=zfymo8bZhEIC&pg=PA328&q=%22%20the%20next%20volume%20of%20Alice%20in%20reverse%22 Carroll, Lewis (Author), Tenniel, John] (2003). ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass'', pp. 328–331. Penguin Classics. {{ISBN|0-14-143976-9}}</ref> It is often depicted as a monster similar to a [[dragon]]. John Tenniel's illustration depicts it with a long serpentine neck, rabbit-like teeth, spidery talons, bat-like wings and, as a humorous touch, a waistcoat. In the 2010 film version of [[Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)|''Alice in Wonderland'']] it is shown with large back legs, small dinosaur-like front legs, and on the ground it uses its wings as front legs like a [[pterosaur]], and it breathes out lightning flashes rather than flame.
* [[Jubjub bird]]: "A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion", according to the Butcher in Carroll's later poem ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]''.<ref name="HoS"/> 'Jub' is an ancient word for a [[Jerkin (garment)|jerkin]] or a dialect word for the trot of a horse (OED). It might make reference to the call of the bird resembling the sound "jub, jub".<ref name="Penguin"/>
* [[wikt:manxome|Manxome]]: Possibly 'fearsome'; Possibly a portmanteau of "manly" and "buxom", the latter relating to men for most of its history; or "three-legged" after the [[triskelion]] emblem of the [[Manx people]] from the [[Isle of Man]].
* [[wikt:mimsy|Mimsy]]: Humpty Dumpty comments that {{"'}}Mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable{{'"}}.<ref name="AAW96"/>
* Mome: Humpty Dumpty is uncertain about this one: "I think it's short for 'from home', meaning that they'd lost their way, you know". The notes in ''[[Mischmasch]]'' give a different definition of 'grave' (via 'solemome', 'solemone' and 'solemn').
* Outgrabe: Humpty Dumpty says {{"'}}outgribing' is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle".<ref name="AAW96"/> Carroll's book appendices suggest it is the past tense of the verb to 'outgribe', connected with the old verb to 'grike' or 'shrike', which derived 'shriek' and 'creak' and hence 'squeak'.<ref name="Penguin"/>
* Rath: Humpty Dumpty says following the poem: "A 'rath' is a sort of green pig". Carroll's notes for the original in ''[[Mischmasch]]'' state that a 'Rath' is "a species of land turtle. Head erect, mouth like a shark, the front forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees, smooth green body, lived on swallows and oysters."<ref name="Penguin"/> In the [[Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)|1951 animated film adaptation of the previous book]], the raths are depicted as small, multi-coloured creatures with tufty hair, round eyes, and long legs resembling pipe stems.
* [[wikt:slithy|Slithy]]: Humpty Dumpty says: {{"'}}Slithy' means 'lithe and slimy'. 'Lithe' is the same as 'active'. You see it's like a portmanteau, there are two meanings packed up into one word."<ref name="AAW96"/> The original in ''Mischmasch'' notes that 'slithy' means "smooth and active".<ref name="Penguin"/> The ''i'' is long, as in ''writhe''.
* [[wikt:snicker-snack|Snicker-snack]]: possibly related to the large knife, the [[wikt:snickersnee|snickersnee]].<ref name="ExplanatoryN"/>
* Tove: Humpty Dumpty says {{"'}}Toves' are something like badgers, they're something like lizards, and they're something like corkscrews. ... Also they make their nests under sun-dials, also they live on cheese."<ref name="AAW96"/> Pronounced so as to rhyme with ''groves''.<ref name="HoS"/> They "gyre and gimble", i.e., rotate and bore. Toves are described slightly differently in ''[[Mischmasch]]'': "a species of Badger [which] had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag [and] lived chiefly on cheese".<ref name="Penguin"/>
* [[wikt:tulgey|Tulgey]]: Carroll himself said he could give no source for this word. It could be taken to mean thick, dense, dark. It has been suggested that it comes from the [[Anglo-Cornish]] word ''tulgu'', 'darkness', which in turn comes from [[Cornish language|Cornish]] ''tewolgow'' 'darkness, gloominess'.<ref>George, Ken. ''An Gerlyver Meur, Cornish-English, English-Cornish Dictionary''. Cornish Language Board, 2009. Part One, Cornish-English, p. 624.</ref>
* [[wikt:uffish|Uffish]]: Carroll noted, "It seemed to suggest a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish".<ref name="ExplanatoryN"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/>
* [[wikt:vorpal|Vorpal]]: Carroll said he could not explain this word, though it has been noted that it can be formed by taking letters alternately from "verbal" and "gospel".<ref name=AnnotatedAlice>{{cite book|editor-last=Gardner|editor-first=Martin|title=[[The Annotated Alice]]|year=1971|publisher=The World Publishing Company|location=New York|pages=195–196|orig-year=1960}}</ref> It has appeared in dictionaries as meaning both 'deadly' and 'extremely sharp'.<ref>[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/vorpal Collins definition]</ref>
* Wabe: The characters in the poem suggest it means "The grass plot around a sundial", called a 'wa-be' because it "goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it".<ref name="AAW96"/> In the original ''Mischmasch'' text, Carroll states a 'wabe' is "the side of a hill (from its being soaked by rain)".<ref name="Penguin"/>