Palavered

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Spent time in extended or idle conversation with others
2. Involved in lengthy and often trivial discussion or chatter
3. Engaged in a drawn-out exchange of words, often unnecessarily long

Etymology: The verb "palavered" is simply the past tense of "palaver," so the story belongs to the noun. It began as nautical slang, and its path into English runs through Portuguese traders. Portuguese "palavra" meant "word," descending from Late Latin "parabola," which also gave English "parable" and "parole." A doublet of those words, it kept the sense of speech while the others took their own routes. The meaning then drifted. Sailors borrowed it for lengthy, fruitless talk, the kind that goes on without reaching anything. Its later use, especially in Africa, where Europeans applied it to negotiations and discussions with local peoples, mirrors the history of "moot," which likewise shifted from a meeting to an argument about nothing in particular. So "palavered" describes chatting at length, with the sense of a long conversation that may never get anywhere. The word has been loosely pinned to the same sea-talk tradition ever since.

Synonyms: chatted, discussed, talked, conversed, gabbled

Antonyms: silenced, ignored, dismissed, avoided, shunned