amphigory

a nonsense verse or composition

The children delighted in the book's amphigory and in the bright, colorful illustrations that accompanied the foolish rhymes.

Did You Know?

The author of the 18th-century French play l'Amphigouri may have coined this term from the Greek words amphi, meaning "around," and agoria, which means "speech," perhaps modeling his coinage on the word "allegory." One common form of amphigory uses letter combinations and sentence structures that don't normally occur in the language; that's the type Lewis Carroll used in "Jabberwocky," a poem whose title has since become another general term for meaningless speech or writing.

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