Jabberwocky

Radiantly beaming, happy, cheerful. Carroll thought he’d coined it, but it is cited in OED as in use in 1530.

An extinct kind of parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sundials; lived on veal.

A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something like a live mop.

Pronounced: bryllyg; derived from the verb “to bryl or broil.” The time of broiling dinner, i.e., the close of the afternoon.

Carroll notes that “burble” could be a mixture of the three verbs “bleat,” “murmur,” and “warble,” although he did not remember creating it.

Combination of “chuckle” and “snort.”

Possibly a blend of fair, fabulous, and joyous.

Possibly a combination of “fuming” and “furious.”

Perhaps used in the poem as a blend of “gallop” and “triumphant.”

Pronounced: Gymble (whence gimblet). To screw out holes in anything. To make holes like a gimlet.

A verb (derived from gyaour or giaour, a dog.) To scratch like a dog.To go round and round like a gyroscope.

The Anglo-Saxon word “wocer” or “wocor” signifies “offspring” or “fruit.” Taking “jabber” in its ordinary acceptation of “excited and voluble discussion,” this would give the meaning of “the result of much excited and voluble discussion.”

A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion.

Possibly “fearsome”; possibly a portmanteau of “manly” and “buxom.”

(whence “mimserable” and “miserable”). Unhappy. Flimsy and miserable.

Short for “from home”—meaning to lose one’s way.

Past tense of the verb “to outgribe.” Outgribbing is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.

A species of land turtle. Head erect, mouth like a shark, the forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees. Smooth green body, lived on swallows and oysters. A rath is a sort of green pig.

Pronounced: slythy. A compound of slimy and lithe; smooth and active. Lithe and slimy. Lithe is the same as “active.” It’s like a portmanteau—two meanings packed up into one word.

Possibly related to the large knife, the snickersee.

A species of badger. They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag. “Toves” should be pronounced to rhyme with “groves.”

Something like badgers—they’re something like lizards—and they are something like corkscrews—They make their nests under sundials—also they live on cheese.

Can mean “thick, dense, and dark.”

Suggests a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.

Carroll says he cannot explain this word.