Recent Examples on the WebThe two bounced off each other in a glossolalia of gassing each other up. Bethy Squires, Vulture, 11 Dec. 2021 It’s tent-revival glossolalia made up of advertising slogans, memes and media jargon. Sam Sacks, WSJ, 16 Oct. 2020 In a small but effective artistic choice, characters talk in crackling, subtitled glossolalia, punctuated only by the occasional intelligible word. Adi Robertson, The Verge, 29 Apr. 2018 In a small but effective artistic choice, characters talk in crackling, subtitled glossolalia, punctuated only by the occasional intelligible word. Adi Robertson, The Verge, 29 Apr. 2018 These gifts include healing, prophecy and glossolalia.The Economist, 4 Nov. 2017
Word History
Etymology
probably borrowed from German Glossolalie, Glossolalia, from glosso- glosso- + Greek laliá "talk, speech" (from laléō, laleîn "to talk, chat"—of onomatopoeic origin— + -ia -ia entry 1), after Greek laleîn glṓssais and variants in the New Testament (as Acts 2:4), conventionally translated "to speak in tongues"
First Known Use
1879, in the meaning defined above
Medical Definition
glossolalia
noun
glos·so·la·lia ˌgläs-ə-ˈlā-lē-ə, ˌglȯs-
: profuse and often emotionally charged speech that mimics coherent speech but is usually unintelligible to the listener and that is uttered in some states of religious ecstasy and in some schizophrenic states