JABBERWOCKY Lewis Carroll (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves,   And the mome raths outgrabe.   "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!              The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun   The frumious Bandersnatch!"   He took his vorpal sword in hand;   Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood,   The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,   And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through   The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head   He went galumphing back. "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?   Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"   He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves,   And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll's Lexicon for "Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry"

Humpty Dumpty's Explication

"You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir", said Alice. "Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem 'Jabberwocky'?"

"Let's hear it", said Humpty Dumpty. "I can explain all the poems that ever were invented--and a good many that haven't been invented just yet."

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"That's enough to begin with", Humpty Dumpty interrupted: "there are plenty of hard words there. 'Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon--the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."

"That'll do very well", said Alice: "and 'slithy'?"

"Well, '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."

I see it now", Alice remarked thoughtfully: "and what are 'toves'?"

"Well, 'toves' are something like badgers--they're something like lizards--and they're something like corkscrews."

"They must be very curious creatures."

"They are that", said Humpty Dumpty: "also they make their nests under sun-dials--also they live on cheese."

"And what's to 'gyre' and to 'gimble'?"

"To 'gyre' is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To 'gimble' is to make holes like a gimlet."

"And 'the wabe' is the grass plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?" said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

"Of course it is. It's called 'wabe', you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it--"

"And a long way beyond it on each side", Alice added.

"Exactly so. Well then, 'mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable' (there's another portmanteau for you). And a 'borogove' is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round--something like a live mop."

"And then 'mome raths'?" said Alice. "If I'm not giving you too much trouble."

"Well a 'rath' is a sort of green pig, but 'mome' I'm not certain about. I think it's sort for 'from home'--meaning that they'd lost their way, you know."

"And what does 'outgrabe' mean?"

"Well, 'outgribing' is something between bellowing an whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe--down in the wood yonder--and when you've once heard it, you'll be quite content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?"

"I read it in a book", said Alice.

(from Through The Looking Glass)

Annotations from the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., for some words from "Jabberwocky"

  1604 SHAKES. Oth. III. iii. 158 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has bin slaue to thousands. 1693 J.
BYROM Let. to Aubrey 15 Nov., in Lett. Eminent Persons (1813) II. I. 167 'Twas then
commonly said. 1741 RICHARDSON Pamela I. 175 'Twas a Thing to be lamented. 1859
FITZGERALD Omar xlii, He bid me taste of it; and 'twas the Grape!

  1622 W. WHATELY God's Husb. II. 116 We make no great matter of the lower degrees of sinne, and so grow slithy, and fashionable, and dead in our confessions.
(SLEATHY= rare.  Slovenly, careless.  1649 W. BLITHE Eng. Improv. Impr. 52 The combination of labourers and poor people may very much prejudice, besides their slothfull and sleathy slubbering of it. a1904 in Eng. Dial. Dict.
s.v. Sleath (Kentish dial.), He is a bit sleethy.)

slithy, a. ²
   A word invented by ‘Lewis Carroll’: ‘smooth and active’ (‘Carroll’, 1855, 140) and popularized esp. in phr. slithy toves from Through the Looking-Glass (1871). Also in subsequent allusive uses.

  1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 139 Twas bryllyg and the slythy
[1871: slithy] toves Did gyre and gymble in the wabe. 1920 ‘K. MANSFIELD’ Let. 27 Sept. (1928)
II. 48, I watched him [sc. a lizard] come forth to-day-- very slithy-- and eat an ant. 1928 A. S.
EDDINGTON Nature of Physical World xiii. 291 Eight slithy toves gyre and gimble in the oxygen
wabe; seven in nitrogen. 1937 G. FRANKAU More of Us 2 While the free-versifier gyres and
gimbles The slithy tove--with his own ‘private symbols’. 1960 H. MARCHAND Categories x. 368
Lewis Carroll's slithy.., chortle..have become common property. Shakespeare's glaze (f. glare
and gaze) has not. 1981 Time Out 20-26 Mar. 54/1 Pity the slithy toves of academe.

  1855 [see SLITHY a.]. 1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 142 Tove,
a species of Badger. They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag: lived
chiefly on cheese. 1928 [see SLITHY a.]. 1937 G. FRANKAU More of Us 2 While the free-versifier
gyres and gimbles The slithy tove--with his own ‘private symbols’.

  1566 DRANT Horace's Sat. II. Bij, Fashions..Which..do cum, and goe in circled gyre. 1590
SPENSER F.Q. II. v. 8 To ward, Or strike, or hurtle rownd in warlike gyre. 1603 B. JONSON Satyr,
Pardon, lady, this wild strain,..Elves, apply your gyre again. 1614 BP. HALL Recoll. Treat. 494
Other Artizans doe but practise, we still learne; others run still in the same gyre, to wearinesse..our
choice is infinite. c1620 T. ROBINSON M. Magd. 786 Like to ye top, yt in his gyre doth spin. 1649
BULWER Pathomyot. II. i. 71 In all these we may easily maintaine the gyre or circumaction of the
Head. 1669 W. SIMPSON Hydrol. Chym. 78 Whirling them in oblique gyres. 1814 CARY Dante,
Inf. XVII. 93 Be thy wheeling gyres Of ample circuit, easy thy descent. 1829 SOUTHEY Inscrip.
Caled. Canal 2 The glede Wheeling between the mountains in mid air, Eastward or westward as
his gyre inclines. 1856 MRS. BROWNING Aur. Leigh IV. 1167 Graduating up in a spiral line Of still
expanding and ascending gyres. 1920 W. B. YEATS Michael Robartes 34 All our scientific,
democratic, fact-accumulating, heterogeneous civilization belongs to the outward gyre. 1928
Coll. Poems (1950) 217 O sages standing in God's holy fire... Come from the holy fire, perne in a
gyre. 1929  Let. (1954) 764, I believe I shall have a poetical re-birth for as I write about my
cones and gyres all sorts of images come before me. 1930 R. CAMPBELL Adamastor 98 A
serpent..With lifted crest and radiant gyre Revolving into wheels of fire. 1948 C. DAY LEWIS
Poems 1943-47 64 Earth-souls doomed in their gyres to unwind Some tragic love-tangle. 1962
Listener 20 Dec. 1047/2 It is deeply satisfying both as riddle and as poem. The poet evokes an
atmosphere of mystery within the frame of the eternal gyre.

    2. concr. A ring, circle, spiral; also, a vortex.

  1590 SPENSER F.Q. III. i. 23 She rushing through the thickest preasse Perforce disparted their
compacted gyre. 1629 MASSINGER Picture II. ii, He..dispersed the armed gire With which I was
environed. 1686 GOAD Celest. Bodies II. vii. 244 To hurry a great Ship downright in a Dismal
Gyre, down into the deep. 1718 BLAIR in Phil. Trans. XXX. 893 The Cochlea is a long Cavity
consisting of three Gyres or Meanders. 1848 LYTTON Harold V. i, The smoke rises in dark gyres to
the air. 1881 ROSSETTI House of Life, Sonn. xliv, Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,
What unsunned gyres of waste eternity? 1892 W. E. HENLEY Song of Sword, Lond. Voluntaries
iv. 10 In genial wave on wave and gyre on gyre.
 

    ¶3. ‘A trance’ (Cockeram 1623). Obs.--0
  Prob. a mistake. Cf. the following: 1612 DRAYTON Poly-olb. v, Streames in whose entrancing
gyres Wise nature oft herselfe her workmanship admires.

    4. Comb., as gyre-circling adj.

  1881 ROSSETTI Rose Mary, Beryl-song, Gyre-circling spirits of fire.

gyre, v
poet.
1. trans. To turn or whirl round. rare.

  c1420 Pallad. on Husb. I. 327 The side in longe vppon the south, let sprede..gire hit from the
colde west, if thow conne. 1628 BP. HALL Rem. Wks. (1660) 25 With the spightful Philistim, he
[the Devil] puts out both the eyes of our apprehension and judgement, that he may gyre us about in
the Mill of unprofitable wickednesse. 1885 G. MEREDITH Diana Crossways xxii, She was out at a
distance on the ebb-sands hurtled, gyred, beaten to all shapes.

    2. To revolve round, compass. Obs.

  c1420 Pallad. on Husb. x. 203 September is with Aprill houris euen, ffor Phebus lijk in either
gireth heuen.

    3. intr. To turn round, revolve, whirl, gyrate.

  1593 DRAYTON Eclog. II. 71 Which from their proper Orbes not goe, Whether they gyre swift or
slow. 1598 YONG Diana 10 When to the west the sunne begins to gyre. 1633 P. FLETCHER Purple
Isl. II. xxxvii, A..groom..Which soon the full-grown kitchin cleanly drains By divers pipes, with
hundred turnings giring. Ibid. IV. viii, Round about two circling altars gire In blushing red. 1808 J.
BARLOW Columb. III. 785 Mutual strokes with equal force descend..now gyring prest High at the
head, now plunging for the breast. 1814 SOUTHEY Roderick XII, The eagle's cry, Who..at her
highest flight A speck scarce visible, gyred round and round. 1871 ‘L. CARROLL’ Through
Looking-Glass i. 21 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. 1920 W.
B. YEATS Demon & Beast in Coll. Poems (1950) 210 To watch a white gull take A bit of bread
thrown up into the air; Now gyring down and perning there. 1930 E. POUND XXX Cantos xxv. 114
Three lion cubs..which born at once began life and motion and to go gyring about their mother.
1951 S. SPENDER World within World v. 283 The bomber was gyring and diving.

    Hence gyring vbl. n., revolution, gyration. gyring ppl. a., revolving, whirling,
gyrating; also, encircling, encompassing; whence gyringlyadv., with revolving
motion.

  1575 LANEHAM Let. (1871) 18 With sundry windings, gyrings, and circumflexions. 1590 PEELE
Polyhymnia 36 At the shock The hollow gyring vault of heaven resounds. 1594 J. DICKENSON
Arisbas (1878) 72 One colour teinteth all, Turrets, doores, and gyring wall. 1598  Greene in
Conc. (1878) 150 Wind-tossed waues which with a gyring course Circle the Centers-ouerpeering
maine. 1635 QUARLES Embl. IV. ii. (1718) 193 This gyring lab'rinth. 1635 HEYWOOD Hierarch. II.
63 They [the Heavens] alter in their gyring more or less. a1640 DAY Parl. Bees (1881) 76 The
massie world..That on Gyreing [so MS.] spheares is hurld. 1659 TORRIANO, A-gironda, giringly,
about and about.

  1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 139 The slythy toves Did gyre
and gymble in the wabe. Ibid. 140 Wabe, (derived from the verb to swab or soak). ‘The side of a
hill’ (from its being soaked by the rain). 1871 ---  Through Looking-Glass 24 The slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

  1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 139 All mimsy were the
borogoves. Ibid. 140 Mimsy, (whence mimserable and miserable). ‘Unhappy.’ 1880 Antrim &
Down Gloss., Mim, Mimsey, prim, prudish. 1895 S. CHRISTIAN Sarah (ed. 4) 262 She is no
mimzy miss to be scared, or a reed to break if you lean your hand on it. 1911 C. MACKENZIE
Passionate Elopement xxi. 186 Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so
thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer. 1920 D. H. LAWRENCE Touch & Go 6 Good
plays? You might as well say mimsy bomtittle plays, you'd be saying as much. 1933 W. DE LA
MARE Lord Fish 171 Treading mimsey as a cat. 1934 Times Educ. Suppl. 24 Mar. p. iv/2 A
people unimaginative enough to accept a mimsy and scrannel ‘P.R.’ in place of the organ music, the
soul-uplifting harmony of ‘Proportional Representation’. 1936Punch 10 June 650/1 ‘It's the
glamour of it,’ sighed Josephine. ‘Whenever I smell a programme I go quite mimseyhonestly I do.’
1937 ‘N. BLAKE’ There's Trouble Brewing i. 24 An affected mimsy sort of voice that she
reserved presumably for cultural pronouncements: Nigel preferred her normal, unmitigated boom.
1956 J. CANNAN People to be Found vii. 91 With horror they had seen the lawns of the Botanic
Gardens torn up and replaced by a mimsy pseudo-Elizabethan rose-garden. 1963Times 8 Feb.
14/3 Moreover his interpolated variation in the first act, danced to the normally unused andante of
the pas de trois and consisting largely of slow pirouettes en attitude, looked as mimsy as the
borogroves [sic], and could not be regarded as successful.

  c1440 Promp. Parv. 342/1 Mome, or awnte [Pynson faders suster. Mome, or aunte, moders
syster].

mome, n.2
Obs. exc. arch.
   ‘A dull blockish fellow’ (Phillips, ed. Kersey 1706): a blockhead, dolt, fool.

  1553 Respublica I. iv. 348 An honest mome; ah, ye dolt, ye lowte, ye Nodye. 1560 INGELEND
Disob. Child Giijb, And me her husbande as a starke mome, With knockyng and mockynge she
wyll handell. 1573 TUSSER Husb. (1878) 139 Ill husbandrie spendeth abrode like a mome. 1584 R.
SCOT Discov. Witchcr. VII. xii. (1886) 118 Saule saw nothing, but stood without like a mome.
1590 SHAKES. Com. Err. III. i. 32 Mome, Malthorse, Capon, Coxcombe, Idiot, Patch. 1609
DEKKER Gvlls Horne-bk. 5 Grout-nowles and Moames will in swarmes fly buzzing about thee.
1656 S. H. Gold. Law 23 And yet like senseless Momes, sit still. 1719 D'URFEY Pills I. 147 Joan
lisping her Liquor scatters, And Nelly hiccoupping calls her Mome. 1721 --- Two Queens
Brentford IV. i, At this the Knight look'd like a Mome. 1881 A. J. DUFFIELD Don Quix. I. p. cxix,
But if thou cook a kind of fare That not for every mome is fit, Be sure that fools will nibble there.
1923 E. SITWELL Bucolic Comedies 17 An old dull mome With a head like a pome.

  transf. 1736 in Lediard Life Marlborough III. 438 But let their molten Mome of Triumph stand,
And blush, tho' Brass, at Marlbro's mighty Hand.

mome, n.3
    a. A carping critic (obs.).    b. nonce-use. A buffoon, jester.

  1563 Mirr. Mag., Wilful Fall Blacksmith xiv, I dare be bolde a while to play the mome, Out of
my sacke some others faultes to lease, And let my owne behinde my backe to peyse. 1652 A.
ROSS Hist. World Pref. 4 [It is] farre more easie to play the Mome then the Mime, to reprehend,
then to imitate. 1652 ---  View all Religions (1655) To Rdr., These censorious Momes. 1676
MOXON Print Lett. 4 My Pains and Endeavours may lie under the Censure of Detracting Momes.
1902 Q. Rev. Oct. 465 Samuel Rogers..could still describe the Italian mome as one ‘Who speaks
not, stirs not, but we laugh;..Arlecchino’.

mome, a.
   A factitious word introduced by ‘Lewis Carroll’ (see quot. 1855).
  Also occurs in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) i. 21.

  1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 139 All mimsy were the
borogoves; And the mome raths outgrabe. Ibid. 140 Mome (hence solemome, solemone and
solemn), ‘grave’. 1960 M. GARDNER Annotated Alice 195/1 ‘Mome’ has a number of obsolete
meanings such as mother, a blockhead,..none of which, judging from Humpty Dumpty's
interpretation, Carroll had in mind. 1970 R. D. SUTHERLAND Lang. & Lewis Carroll vii. 149
Humpty Dumpty is reporting the generally accepted meanings... The information he imparts is ‘as
sensible as a dictionary’... He admits some difficulty with mome.

mome
  variant of MALM a. dial., soft.

  1596 SPENSER State Irel. Wks. (Globe) 642/2 There is a great use amongest the Irish to make
greate assemblyes togither upon a rath or hill. Ibid., They are called Dane~rathes, that is, hills of the
Danes. 1617 MORYSON Itin. II. II. ii. 161 A ground of aduantage, being a strong Rath, between the
towne and the Camp. 1700 E. LHWYD in Phil. Trans. XXVII. 525 Their round Entrenchments,
commonly called Danes Rathes. 1807 SIR R. C. HOARE Tour Irel. 21 One of those raised earthen
works, which the Irish writers call raths. 1845 E. WARBURTON Crescent & Cross II. 361 With the
tombs of Hector and Achilles appearing like Irish raths. 1880 MCCARTHY Own Times IV. lvii. 231
The ‘good people’ still linger around the raths and glens.

rath, n.²
    A factitious word introduced by ‘Lewis Carroll’ (see quot. 1855²). Quot. 1855¹ also occurs in the first verse of ‘Jabberwocky’ in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) i. 21.

  1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 139 All mimsy were the
borogoves; And the mome raths outgrabe. Ibid. 140 Rath, a species of land turtle. Head erect:
mouth like a shark: the fore legs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees: smooth green
body: lived on swallows and oysters.

rath
    obs. form of RAITH; variant of RATHE.

outgrabe, v.
    A factitious word introduced by ‘Lewis Carroll’ (see quot. 1855²). (In quot. 1903 used for ‘outdo’, after the style of out-Herod, etc.).  Quot. 1855¹ also occurs in the first verse of ‘Jabberwocky’ in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) i. 21.

  1855 ‘L. CARROLL’ Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch (1932) 139 All mimsy were the
borogoves; And the mome raths outgrabe. Ibid. 140 Outgrabe, past tense of the verb to outgribe.
(It is connected with the old verb to grike or shrike, from which are derived ‘shriek’ and ‘creak’.)
‘Squeaked.’ 1876  --- Hunting of Snark v. 50 The Beaver had counted with scrupulous care,
Attending to every word: But it fairly lost heart, and outgrabe in despair, When the third repetition
occurred. 1903 Sat. Rev. 7 Feb. 164/1 Deadmanship! wrote..Dr. Shrapnel..; and the word is fit to
stir the jealous admiration of Carlyle or even Lewis Carroll. Indeed Dr. Shrapnel ‘outgrabed’ them
both.