What is the answer to the crossword clue "nonsense"?

There is more than one. 43 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is usually BUNK, and BOSH and TOSH are the other two that fit. BUNK is the most common in American puzzles, TOSH in British ones. At five, HOOEY and HOKUM are the pair to try first.

How many letters is the answer to "nonsense"?

Anything from 4 to 17. The length with the most candidates is 8. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.

How reliable are these answers?

23 of the 43 appear in two independently compiled reference works, WordNet and Moby Thesaurus, rather than one. All of them are in the 173,000-word dictionary this site searches. None of them comes from any published puzzle.

Crossword clue

Nonsense crossword clue

43 words in our dictionary can answer the crossword clue "nonsense", from as short as 4 letters up to 17, grouped below by the length of your slot.

Written by Blake Boege

Answers by length

11 different lengths answer this one. Yours is whichever row matches the squares in the grid.

Letters	Answers
4	bunkconfirmed by two sources boshconfirmed by two sources cant tosh
5	frill hokumconfirmed by two sources crock droolconfirmed by two sources hooeyconfirmed by two sources stuff
6	gibberconfirmed by two sources humbugconfirmed by two sources piffleconfirmed by two sources
7	baloneyconfirmed by two sources boloney mummery palaverconfirmed by two sources twaddleconfirmed by two sources
8	falderol gimcrack trumperyconfirmed by two sources buzzword cobblers flummeryconfirmed by two sources rhetoric tommyrotconfirmed by two sources
9	absurdityconfirmed by two sources gibberishconfirmed by two sources poppycockconfirmed by two sources rigmaroleconfirmed by two sources
10	absurdnessconfirmed by two sources balderdashconfirmed by two sources bilgewater rigamaroleconfirmed by two sources taradiddle
11	gimcrackery nonsensical incoherence jabberwockyconfirmed by two sources tarradiddle
14	ridiculousnessconfirmed by two sources
15	meaninglessness
17	unintelligibility

What this list looks like

8 of these are 8 letters, which is more than any other length manages.

The short ones are worth learning: BUNK, BOSH, CANT, TOSH at 4 letters, which is where a setter goes when the grid is tight.

9 of these mean the same as the clue and 34 are kinds of it, which is a distinction worth holding on to when two look equally good.

Which one does the setter mean?

Four squares is usually BUNK, and BOSH and TOSH are the other two that fit. BUNK is the most common in American puzzles, TOSH in British ones. At five, HOOEY and HOKUM are the pair to try first.

How these differ

English has an unusual number of words for rubbish talk and they differ by era and accent. BUNK, BUNKUM and BUNCOMBE are the same word at different stages, from a windy speech given by a congressman from Buncombe County. TOSH, PIFFLE and COBBLERS are British. HOOEY, HOKUM, BALONEY and MALARKEY are American and all roughly interwar. POPPYCOCK, BALDERDASH and TOMMYROT sound Victorian because they are. GIBBERISH and JABBERWOCKY are about sound without sense rather than falsehood, which is a different accusation.

Still stuck? Filter by the letters you have

Got a crossing letter? The word finder searches the same dictionary as this page, with a box for the first letter, the last, and anything in between.

Where these answers come from

These came out of a dictionary. Every word above is recorded by WordNet as meaning “nonsense” or as naming a kind of it, and each one is in the 173,000-wordlist this site searches. Moby Thesaurus lists 23 of them too. We hold no newspaper's answer key and reproduce no published crossword.

Common questions

What is the answer to the crossword clue "nonsense"?: There is more than one. 43 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is usually BUNK, and BOSH and TOSH are the other two that fit. BUNK is the most common in American puzzles, TOSH in British ones. At five, HOOEY and HOKUM are the pair to try first.
How many letters is the answer to "nonsense"?: Anything from 4 to 17. The length with the most candidates is 8. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.
How reliable are these answers?: 23 of the 43 appear in two independently compiled reference works, WordNet and Moby Thesaurus, rather than one. All of them are in the 173,000-word dictionary this site searches. None of them comes from any published puzzle.