Flibbertigibbets

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A whimsical person characterized by excessive talkativeness and frivolity; someone who is flighty and lacks seriousness in behavior or attitude; an individual known for being scatterbrained and capricious in their actions and conversations
2. A playful term for someone who is prone to chatter and behaves in a capricious, lighthearted manner; a person who often seems distracted and unpredictable in their thoughts and dealings; an amusing label for those who engage in trivial or nonsensical talk
3. Referring to a person characterized by giddiness and a tendency to ramble on whimsically; one who exhibits a lack of focus and seriousness, often engaging in playful or nonsensical banter; a lighthearted descriptor for someone who acts in a frivolous and capricious way

Etymology: The word is the plural of "flibbertigibbet," and the singular is the one with the real story. It was first recorded in 1549, and its sound seems to have been made up to mimic the nonsense chatter of gossips. Early on it was not only a gossip's insult: from around 1603 it also named an imp or fiend, and even the Devil himself. A less likely theory links it to "flibbergib," a word meaning "toady" or "sycophant," which in turn may trace to an Old Norse compound meaning "babbler of nonsense." That older word is also the ancestor of the "flip-" in "flippant," so the two terms share a distant ancestry in idle talk. The original sense of "flibbergib" was simply "chatterer," which fits the modern character sketch of someone who talks too much and takes little seriously.