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I am looking for a single word to describe this case.

Lets say someone makes a claim and tries to back it up but fails at doing so. These words do sound pleasurable perhaps filled with platitudes, often used to communicate good intentions but lacking meaning or reason. It's the best I can do to describe this.

The word is close to something like this "those are just a bunch of syllables"

guest042381
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  • I'd use a word like 'froth', but I'm not sure that is quite what you mean. – Lee Leon Oct 25 '17 at 11:18
  • That certainly leans in the right direction. – guest042381 Oct 25 '17 at 11:45
  • Ah, so you're looking for a name for words like covfefe? Nonce words, they are. – NVZ Oct 25 '17 at 12:05
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    Gobbledygook: language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of abstruse technical terms; nonsense. – Hot Licks Oct 25 '17 at 12:26
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    'word salad' in one direction; 'bullshit' in another – Mitch Oct 25 '17 at 12:57
  • I don't know if it's still in use but when I was in univesity in a previous millenium we used the word "handwaving" to describe the situation where a person, either a student or teacher, tried to create the appearance of proving a point when they lacked the evidence or logic to establish it. It had the same meaning as "bullshit" but was not so abusive. – Al Maki Oct 25 '17 at 15:21
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    rhetoric comes pretty close. – user405662 Nov 24 '20 at 07:38

2 Answers2

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It is a mistake to assume that every concept imaginable can be expressed by a unique word. English is lexically rich, but not that rich. Sometimes you must resort to more than one word, a phrase, a clause, a sentence, or even a book.

There are nouns that mean close to what you seem to want to convey. "Nonsense" is a common noun to express lack of logical or factual substance, but "nonsense" by itself does not imply that it is pleasant or plausible. A "commonplace" and a "platitude" mean that a thought is both commonly held and expressed in a formulaic way, but that does not make the thought nonsense. "Vacuous" is an adjective that means lacking logical and factual substance, but it does not imply "pleasant" or "plausible." This is where a thesaurus comes in handy.

Of course, once you let yourself combine nouns and adjectives, you have a wealth of possibilities: "sweet nothings," "meaningless pap," "vacuous platitudes," and "platitudinous nonsense" are examples. And you can concatenate adjectives: "vacuous but plausible platitudes" expresses the sense you seem to want with a euphonious consonance.

EDIT: User Nate has suggested that "specious" is an adjective to consider.

Jeff Morrow
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  • http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/gobbledygook – Hot Licks Oct 25 '17 at 12:27
  • To "vacuous", and "platitudinous", I would add "trite". – WS2 Oct 25 '17 at 12:35
  • anodyne? (but that tends to have meaning just expressed weakly) – Mitch Oct 25 '17 at 12:58
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    @ws2 I tend to restrict "trite" to describing an utterance that is superficial rather than nonsensical. It was for the same reason that I rejected "banal" and "banality." I may be wrong, however, because many do use those terms to imply outright error. – Jeff Morrow Oct 25 '17 at 13:18
  • It might help if the OP gave a specific example of what they have in mind. – WS2 Oct 25 '17 at 17:42
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Your question seems to seek a noun. I have three suggestions:

Flimflam =

1 : deceptive nonsense

2 : DECEPTION, FRAUD

Merriam webster

Or you might use

Waffle = to talk or write a lot without giving any useful information or any clear answers:

Cambridge dictionary

I also like

Drivel = something written or said that is completely worthless; nonsense

Cambridge dictionary

Anton
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