Glossary: Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

beamish

a variant of “beaming,” meaning “shining brightly, radiant.” (TAA)

borogove

“a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round— something like a live mop.” (ALG)

brillig

“four o’clock in the afternoon— the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.” (ALG)

burble

possibly “burst” and “bubble” or “bleat,” “murmur,” and “warble” (TAA)

frumious

“fuming” and “furious” (TAA)

to galumph

“gallop” and “triumphant,” meaning “to march on exultantly with irregular bounding movements.” (TAA)

to gimble

“to make holes like a gimlet” (ALG)

to gyre

“to go round and round like a gyroscope” (ALG)

mimsy

“flimsy and miserable” (ALG)

mome

possibly “‘from home’— meaning that they’d lost their way.” (ALG)

to outgribe

“something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle” (ALG)

rath

“a sort of green pig” (ALG)

slithy

“lithe and slimy” (ALG)

toves

“something like badgers— they’re something like lizards— and they’re something like cork-screws.... also they make their nests under sun-dials— also they live on cheese.” (ALG)

tum-tum

colloquialism referring to the sound of a stringed instrument, especially when monotonously strummed. (TAA)

uffish

According to Carroll, “a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.” (TAA)

wabe

“the grass-plot around a sun-dial,” called such “because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond on each side.” (ALG)

whiffling

blowing unsteadily in short puffs (TAA)

Sources:

• (ALG) - The conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty in Alice Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll.
• (TAA) - The Annotated Alice, Introduction and Notes by Martin Gardner

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