Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also palaverment, pallaver, pallaveration, perlaver) chat, talk, conversation; in formal situations, a meeting.

1757		Smollett Reprisal II ix: I don’t take in your palaver, not I—and may hap, you don’t know my lingo.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 96: The old cock with froth and slaver, / began, as usual, his pallaver.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 33: They made [...] such a fine pallaveration.
1770		D. Gunston (ed.) Jemmy Twitcher’s Jests 23: ‘Avast, brother, with your cheek-jaw and palaver!’.
1775		Gentleman’s Mthly Intelligencer Aug. 409/2: Where could you go my kiddy, have I not messed you and bedded you — and therefore no more palabre, but shove off your boat.
1792		Caledonian Mercury 28 May 2/4: Some delay in beginning [...] had been occasioned by a Palaver, or general meeting, of all the surrounding chewifs.
1798		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Tales of Hoy’ Works (1801) V 261: The true heart dances no hornpipes on the tongue – a p-x on palaver, say I.
1799		Staffordshire Advertiser 9 Nov. 3/1: Tiggity Sego held a palaver, which Mr Park attended [...] de ates on both sides displayed much ingenuity.
1800		G. Colman Yngr Heir at Law II i: He ended, with his respects, and a parcel of palaver, to you.
1822		W. Maginn ‘The Wine-Bibber’s Glory’ in Blackwood’s Mag. Jan. n.p.: ’Tis a nice provocation, to wise conversation, Queer blarney, or harmless palaver.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 209: ‘Halt, – deliver, – must and shall, – can’t and shan’t, – do as I bid you, or go to the devil!’ That’s all Fighting Attie’s palaver.
1837		Marryat Snarleyyow II 22: We shall know something about it to-night, for the corporal and I am to have a palaver.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 365: I’ll tell ye a story ’bout him hat may come into your palaverment, if you like.
1847		Anti-Slavery Bugle (New Lisbon, OH) 19 Feb. 4/5: You do not care for any thing but book-palaver and God-palaver.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 3 July 3/2: That ere palaver which the big-wigs has been a having in the Legisterial Assemblige’.
1865		‘Mr Carlisle’ Stray Leaves 178: After some palaver, the commander of the craft got into my boat.
1865		R.S. Surtees Facey Romford’s Hounds 364: After a good deal of similar palaverment, he concluded [etc.].
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 268: S’pose the by’s kin tell a blood whin they sees’em widout all that palaver.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Feb. 3/3: In he eagerness to see and hear the long palaver she leaned too far over.
1884		H. Smart Post to Finish II 169: I want to go over there and have a palaver with your father.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 3 Aug. 6/4: After a little palaver [he] said it was a pity either of them should lose such a heavy stake .
1894		Truth (Sydney) 6 May. 1/1: The Government would be consulting its own dignity [...] if it put the shutters up without further palaver.
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 66: I don’t want any palaver [...] I’ve no more to say on the subject.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 223: Why ain’t you in the barracks having one of your quiet palavers with Mrs Beaudesart?
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 13 July 12/4: ‘A chat over a can of grog [...] will suit you better than a palaver in this house’.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL 4 217: Oi’ll go now an’ make up a fairy shtor-ry that’ll satisfy th’ owld chayfe about our long palaver-r.
c.1921		T. Norman Penny Showman 5: After the usual palaver he went on thus, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a rather exciting performance’.
1932		J. Dixon Free To Love 75: Men who countered with polite palaver in place of blows – here was something he didn’t know.
1943		Mencken letter 1 Apr. in Riggio Dreiser-Mencken Letters II (1986) 693: It is a pity that we are so far apart that we can’t meet for an occasional palaver.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 182: All this palaver consumed at least five minutes.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 32: After a bit of a palaver outside, I heard the truck drive away.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 207: I’ve been wanting a bit of a palaver with you and this seems as good a time as any.
1961		X. Herbert Soldiers’ Women (1978) 146: Pudsey [...] cut the palaver short by grunting, ‘What’s this private and urgent business, anyway?’.
1967		N. Mailer Why Are We in Vietnam? (1970) 123: Hey, hey, is this the way they really talk? [...] all that pederastic palaver?
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 16: You may have seen his daily column, ‘Pinch’s Palaver’.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 301: A chick Dino would be trading palaver and sipping highballs with.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 205: Morris wouldn’t want to be the owner of the bike [...] once their little palaver is done.

2. wearisome, idle or insincere talk.

1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 232: Dam-me! (said the outlaw) none of your palaver; but let me see what money you have got!
1764		Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 173: Come, come, let’s have none of your palaver here.
1772		G. Stevens ‘The Jolly Soul’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 63: As to pulpit palaver, why, that’s all a flam.
1788		Morris et al. ‘O’Whack’s Song in Notoriety’ in Festival of Anacreon (1810) 55: You may talk of a brogue, and of Ireland [...] Of bulls and of howls and palaver.
1794		W. Godwin Caleb Williams (1966) 212: Damn me, tip us none of your palaver; we have heard that story of a poor traveller any time these five years.
1800		‘All On Board’ Jovial Songster 32: Why d’ye see ’tis palaver, my girl, nothing more.
1816		M. Lewis 6 Jan. in Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834) 77: Possibly this was all palaver [...] but at least he seemed to be sincere.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 323: Flashy Nance [...] had gammoned more seamen out of their vills and power than the ingenuity or palaver of twenty of the most knowing of the frail sisterhood.
1831		Satirist (London) 4 Dec. 274/2: ‘My dear friends, I hate palaver and gammon,—a gammon of bacon excepted. (ha! ha!) I likes good cheer and jollification’.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 201: Now, no more of your palaver, Misther Connor.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend 1 184: There! there! – your palaver! [Ibid.] 289: Sounds like palaver.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 22: Then she got listening to the Frenchman’s palavering when she ought to have been minding her leaning.
1879		G.R. Sims Dagonet Ballads 2: There, stow your perlaver a minit.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 8/4: He [...] was just in time to see his lady love’s hair rise up slowly and stand on end as the gorgon-like female brushed past her and made straight for the fatal volume of holy palaver [...].
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 214: I mean th’ holy Joes: th’ cushion smiters. Them as holds a palaver uv a Sunday in th’ cackle tubs in th’ big churches.
1893		Capital Jrnl (Salem, OR) 10 Aug. 2/2: Political Palaver. What the Blowhards in Congress are Doing.
1896		S.F. Call 19 July 19/2: These Britons indulge in what Americans call ‘palaver’.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 10: After five minutes’ more palaver, M’Nab agreed to an even swap.
1908		N.Y. Tribune 25 Oct. 5/3: ‘Go way wid your palaver,’ laughed Judy.
1914		Joyce ‘The Dead’ Dubliners (1956) 176: The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 164: All this palaver and softie talk.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 174: We would clap all the soft soap palaver of the Mr. O’Hanlon of the moment.
1942		J. Mitchell ‘Professor Sea Gull’ Joe Gould’s Secret (1996) 13: The Oral History is a great hodgepodge of [...] gab, palaver, hogwash, flapdoodle, and malarkey.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. x: The palaver with which he defends his perverted values.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 149: This [...] had nothing to do with ‘egghead’ palaver about Freedom for Civilians.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 4: Let-me-read-this-here-palaver-into-the-Congressional-Record.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 253: Talking palaver while apparently talking the truth.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 143: Show me a man who denies ever serving up that bit of palaver, and I’ll show you a liar.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 425: The palaver ripped through the centre’s wafer-think walls.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 75: ‘If it’ll save all this palaver [...] I’m going to ask you to clarify your position at GCHQ’.

3. fussiness, a fuss; thus what a palaver, what a fuss.

1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/2: [V]hen ve vas lagged, crikie, what a palaver the ould one in the big wig did hold forth.
1861		M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 360: Is it movin’ boxes you’re makin’ this ’ere palaver about?
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 17 Nov. 105: What are you making such a palaver about?
1916		W. Pett Ridge Madame Prince 149: Now it’s for you to say, my love, without any palaver [...] whether you are prepared to put up with that.
1959		H.E. Bates A Breath of French Air (1985) 130: ‘Perhaps it would have been better if you’d got married after all,’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose we still could [...] But it’s a bit of a palaver.’.
1960		(con. c.1918) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 4: A lot of palaver it was too, with writing and postal orders.
1971		T. Lewis Plender [ebook] ‘All this palaver about basic pay’.
1975		D. Davin Breathing Spaces 89: What was she making all that palaver about?
1985		J. Sullivan ‘Happy Returns’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Should have seen the palaver it caused. Everyone had to get off the bus!
1993		R. Shell Iced 235: She’s putting me through all this palaver shit.
2000		Indep. Rev. 20 May 16: A couple of relatively palaver-free salads.
2010		K. Richards Life 400: All the palaver, the bust, the noise.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 365: All this palaver over a poxy thirty million.

4. (also palaverment) business, concern, goings-on; thus none of your palaver, no business of yours.

1907		Gem 6 Apr. 7: Henry, ye black limb, dem grub palaver done?
1909		S.F. Call 25 July 6/2: King Sow came over to take charge of the town until all its palavers were settled.
1913		‘J.W.L.’ Slave Stories 37: He’s getting into the ways of the native – too much sleep palaver.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 118: It’s my palaver this, you fellows.
1930		‘Leslie Charteris’ Enter the Saint 92: I’m afraid Uncle Elias was rather shocked by the whole palaver.
1930		E. Glyn Flirt & Flapper 18: Flapper: Did we invent all that palaver [i.e. marriage vows] or was it handed to us to spout before we could go off with a boy and stay in a hotel without being arrested?
1943		in T. Harrisson Mass-Observation War Factory: Report 2: I was in there for an hour, all that palaverment with the registrations.
1951		P. Hamilton West Pier (1986) 226: I needn’t have gone into all that palaver at all.
1979		C. Dexter Service of all the Dead (1980) 238: Any why, oh, why, all this peculiar palaver in the church?
1998		I. Welsh Filth 88: It’s fair goat the magistrates oan the warpath, aw that palaver.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 72: I know what’s eating Sorcha. It’s all this bullying palaver.
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] Oblivious to the palaver on the foreshore, he slapped Swann on the shoulder, slumped onto the bench and showed his palm.

5. (Scot.) a fussy, ostentatious person; usu. as old palaver.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 850/2: C.19-20.

6. (UK black) an argument, a fight.

1824		J. Wight Mornings at Bow Street 103: Mr. Lester [. . .] flew to the poker, and had it not been for the interference of the ladies, Mr. Highflyer would doubtless have been laid low. As it was the affair went off in a clamorous palaver.
2001		(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 122: Niff plaver an’ contention [...] two sound men get ratchet sketch.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 296/1: palaver 2. an argument .