garble

gar·ble  (gärbl)

tr.v. gar·bled, gar·bling, gar·bles

1. To mix up or distort to such an extent as to make misleading or incomprehensible: She garbled all the historical facts.

2. To scramble (a signal or message), as by erroneous encoding or faulty transmission.

3. Archaic To sort out; cull.

n.

The act or an instance of garbling.

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[Middle English garbelen, to inspect and remove refuse from spices, from Anglo-Norman garbeler, to sift, and from Medieval Latin garbellre, both from Arabic arbala, to select, from irbl, sieve, from Late Latin crbellum, diminutive of Latin crbrum; see krei- in Indo-European roots.]

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garbler (-blr) n.

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An error in transmission, reception, encryption, or decryption that changes the text of a message or any portion thereof in such a manner that it is incorrect or undecryptable.

Thesaurus

Verb

1.

garble - make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story distort, falsify, warp murder, mutilate, mangle - alter so as to make unrecognizable; "The tourists murdered the French language" misrepresent, belie - represent falsely; "This statement misrepresents my intentions"