Definition

1. Noun:
   • A difficult form of jump rope: A game or activity in which participants jump over two long ropes that are swung in opposing, overlapping circles by two people turning them.
   • Incomprehensible speech or language: Talk or writing that is extremely difficult or impossible to understand; gibberish.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Jump Rope):

  • The kids on the playground are experts at double dutch, jumping in perfect rhythm.
  • She won the city championship in double dutch.

• Noun (Incomprehensible Talk):

  • His technical explanation was complete double dutch to me.
  • The legal document was written in double dutch, full of obscure jargon.

Advanced Usage

• "To be (all) double dutch to someone": To be completely incomprehensible to a person.
  • I tried to read the philosophy paper, but it was all double dutch to me.
• Used informally, often to express frustration or a lack of understanding regarding complex or poorly explained information.

Variants and Related Words

• Double-Dutch (adj, hyphenated variant): Sometimes used as a modifier.
  • She is a double-dutch champion.
• Gibberish (n): Similar meaning for incomprehensible talk.
• Jump rope / Skipping rope (n): The general activity, of which double dutch is a specific, more complex version.

Synonyms

• Gibberish: Unintelligible or meaningless speech.
• Mumbo jumbo: Confusing or meaningless language.
• Gobbledygook: Incomprehensible jargon, especially bureaucratic language.

Related Idioms

• "It's all Greek to me": An idiom with a very similar meaning to "it's double dutch," indicating something is impossible to understand.
  • He started talking about quantum physics, and it was all Greek to me.

Noun

1. the difficult version of jump rope in which players jump over two ropes that are swung in a crisscross manner by two turners
2. an incomprehensible talk