Balderdash is one of my favorite games. It works as follows: one player reads aloud an obscure word of English that nobody knows. All the other players make up a definition for this word and write it down on a scrap of paper. Meanwhile, the word reader writes down the true definition of the word. She then collects all the proposed definitions, slips in the real one, and reads them all aloud. Everyone votes on which definition they think is the real one. Players earn points if they guess the correct definition of the word or if other players vote for their invented definitions. Balderdash is sold as a board game, with cards listing rare English words, but it can be played with nothing more than a dictionary (the larger the better).
All the words from the game Balderdash. Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy. Balderdash is a board game variant of a classic parlor game known as Fictionary or 'The Dictionary Game'. It was created by Laura Robinson and Paul Toyne of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The game was first released in 1984 under Canada Games. I have also created a quiz that follows in the tradition of Balderdash® & this game. To begin the game, randomly choose 1 player to be the Bluffer. This player goes through the dictionary & chooses a word that will be the basis for the first round of the game.
Balderdash is one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. There’s a fine line between a made-up definition that is amusing but still plausible and one that is completely outrageous. And sometimes the real definition is almost unbelievable. The hardest part of the game is probably reading all the proposed definitions aloud with a straight face when you know which one is real.
It’s very satisfying listening to other players take your utterly fictitious definition seriously, and it’s amazing to realize how many words of English (someone’s English, somewhere, sometime) you have never encountered before. In my experience, good Balderdash words tend to be of Germanic origin, as words with Greek or Latin roots can often be at least partially deciphered (consider haffle vs. xanthic) (okay, maybe most people don’t know that xantho– is a prefix from Greek meaning “yellow,” but I honestly think more 21st century speakers of American English know that than have ever heard the word haffle).
Anyway, the point of all this is that I learned two new words this past week that immediately struck me as being excellent Balderdash words.
Wapentake (n.) : asubdivisionofcertainshiresorcounties,espintheMidlandsandNorthofEngland,correspondingtothehundredinothershires
Balderdash Generator
I stumbled upon this word by serendipity. I finished reading the YA fantasy novel Witchlanders (which is so, so good!) and went to learn more about the author, Lena Coakley. She has a fondness for the Brontës, so I looked them up on Wikipedia to remind myself of all the siblings in that family. There, I learned that the Brontës had lived in something called the West Riding of Yorkshire, which sounded so romantic I had to go look that up, whereupon I discovered the subsection “Ancient Divisions: Wapentakes.” It almost doesn’t look like a real English word, right?
The etymology of wapentake is pretty fascinating too. It originally comes from Old Norse and literally means “weapon take”. It might have referred to a sort of census by weaponry and/or a practice of voting by brandishing weapons. It’s interesting to think of dividing land into units according to a set number of available swords (that is, sword-wielding individuals). One could imagine sparsely populated areas having larger wapentakes and densely populated areas having smaller ones. I’m not sure that’s how it worked at all; I’m making this up. But it would be a good worldbuilding element, wouldn’t it?
Spline (n.): along,flexiblestripofwoodorthelike,usedindrawingcurves
This word came up in Baayen’s Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics, a textbook I’m working through this summer (joy!). Specifically, it came up in the context of restricted cubic splines, which are functions that can be used to capture nonlinear relationships in a regression model while avoiding overfitting and its associated problems. Right. Basically, they’re functions for modeling curves, which is why they’re named after a physical tool used to draw curves.
Spline is an ideal Balderdash word because it looks perfectly English (it complies with English phonotactics, or rules about syllable structure and what sounds can appear next to each other) but I had never heard it before reading it in my statistics textbook. It looks like it could mean anything: a type of plant graft, a kind of fishing lure, a bird… Spline’s origin is given as East Anglian dialect, so, Germanic again.
Here, then, are two great Balderdash words! Only, now you know what they mean, which defeats the purpose of the game.
The aim of the game is ultimately to learn the definition of biblical & theological terms and words (eg. iniquity, statute, precept, justification, sanctification, propitiation etc) to build vocabulary and help with personal Bible reading and understanding.
The Balderdash game is a classic bluffing game. Players make up definitions for a chosen word. They earn points for bluffing the other players with their made-up definition. They also earn points for guessing the correct definition.
The game is played in groups, with 8 groups being the maximum otherwise there will be too many definitions to read out and remember.
The Dasher introduces a word to all the groups playing the game (display it on a projector screen if you have one). Each group then has 3 minutes to discuss what they think the correct definition of the word is, and then create a definition for the word that sounds believable and could be mistaken as the correct definition by the other groups.
They write the definition on their answer sheet (with group name on top) and hand it to the “Dasher” up the front.
Once the answer sheets are collected, the “Dasher” reads all the definitions aloud including the correct definition of the word.
Each group then votes for the definition which they believe is the correct definition. The Dasher takes note of which definition each group chooses. After all the groups have guessed, the “Dasher” reads the correct definition (display on projector screen if you have one).
Scores are awarded:
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- A group is awarded 1 point for each vote their made-up definition received.
- Each group who chose the correct definition is awarded 2 points.
- Those groups that didn’t receive any votes or choose the correct definition are awarded no points.
Balderdash Game Word Generator Download
Play more rounds as time allows.