argle-bargle
Etymology
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Etymology
First documented in English in 1822, from Scots (where first recorded in 1808), from earlier argle used in English since 16th century, presumably from argue + -le, though possibly from Old Norse - (Suio-Gothic) ierga – possibly influenced by haggle – plus rhyming reduplication, possibly from bargain, found in early variant aurgle-bargain (1720).
Nounargle-bargle
- (slang) A verbal argument.
- 1992, Rebecca Ward, Grand Deception, page 43:
- Wendell and I have had our share of argle-bargles about the morality of hunting.
- 2013, United States v. Windsor, 544 U.S. 744, 799 (2013) (Scalia, J., dissenting)
- As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, is that DOMA is motivated by '"bare . . . desire to harm"' couples in same-sex marriages.
argle-bargle (argle-bargles, present participle argle-bargling; simple past and past participle argle-bargled)
- (slang) To argue.
- 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Captain Knuckles Under”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC ↗, page 97 ↗:
- Last night ye haggled and argle-bargled like an apple-wife; and then passed me your word, and gave me your hand to back it; and ye ken very well what was the upshot. Be damned to your word!
- argie-bargie
- argy-bargy
- argol-bargol
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