Green’s Dictionary of Slang

palaver v.

also pallaver
[palaver n.]

1. (also pallaber) vi. to talk, to converse.

[UK]Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 583: She yawns woundily in her speech, palavering about some foreign part called New Geereusalem.
[UK]Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 77: But I will now give o’er pallab’ring, / For precious time is lost in jabb’ring.
Dublin Eve Post 15 July n.p.: The governor persuaded him that this was, in the sea-phrase, mere palavering.
‘Poor Jack’ in Bullfinch 200: Why, I heard our good chaplain palaver one day, / ‘Bout souls, heaven, mercy, and such.
[UK]W. Godwin Caleb Williams (1966) 178: How smoothly you palavered it over, for all the world, as if you had been as fair as a new-born babe.
[UK]C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 70: It don’t matter, d’ye see, palavering about the wind’s eye.
[UK]G. Colman Yngr John Bull I i: I’ll palaver him.
[UK] ‘Way of the World’ in Merry Melodist 6: You swagger and palaver and make the folks think, / You are a man of property, and plenty of chink.
[US]National Advocate (N.Y.) 13 Oct. 2/3: [She] palavered him with a story of the pleasures and harmony — the felicity of love, [while picking his pocket].
[US]Jefferson Repub. (Stroudburg, PA) 21 May 1/4: What are you palavering about?
[UK]G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 394: I don’t see any use in our standing palavering here.
[Ind]Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Sept. 50/2: They neither would fight nor palaver.
[Aus]‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 35: Well, what’s the use of palavering?
[UK]M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 352: The forrin swell would have time to get to America, while they was a palaverin’ and jawin’ this ’ere humbug.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 1 May 4/4: He still manages to ‘palaver’ all day and dance all night.
[UK]Newcastle Courant 2 Dec. 6/6: One of us oughter go to the Carsey and palaver Nell as to how things are going.
[US](con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 53: Don’t stand there palavering all day.
[US] ‘Get Up, Jack! John, Sit Down!’ Lomax & Lomax Amer. Ballads and Folk Songs (1934) 493: When Jack and Joe palavers, O.
[Aus]Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 21 Nov. 1/8: After the traditional palavering, [the three-card trick man] found a dupe and cleared him out.
[US]T. Hammond On Board a Whaler 336: You meet the old cuss, Mr. Brown, and be as polite and palaverin’ as yeh know how.
[US]Alaska Citizen 28 July 8/4: A skirt that palavers like a brain-storm with busted steerin’-gear.
[US]Wash. Times (DC) 16 May 44: [cartoon caption] Pa’d Like to Poison a Pair of Palavering Pests at the Play.
[UK]Partridge DSUE (1984) 850/1: from ca. 1730.
[US]D. Dressler Parole Chief 129: I saw him [...] palaver there [i.e. a lunchroom] with some men.
[UK]P. Theroux Family Arsenal 74: Two grubby ones were palavering under Napier.
[US]L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 45: The kid, eager to palaver, finally asks, ‘What happened after they took you out of that place?’.
[WI]Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 39: Palaav to hang out; indulge oneself.
[UK]P. Baker Fabulosa 296/1: palaver 1. to talk .
[UK]R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 28: The absurdity of war [...] she constantly screeched and palavered about.

2. vtr. to ask (someone) for something, to beg from, to wheedle out of .

[UK]Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 179: Have a good caution that this Master Mug does not cajole you; He is a damned palavering fellow.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Pallaver, to flatter, originally an African word for a treaty, talk, or conference.
[UK]Sporting Mag. May XXIV 166/2: I knows the lubber that has launched this play; And he’ll palaver you.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
[Ire]Spirit of Irish Wit 220: I shall slabber and palaver ye, and comeMother Delaney over ye, who had a tongue that would carney over the very devil himslf.
[Aus]Currency Lad (Sydney) 3 Nov. 4/2: I couldn’t make play in my togs, or palaver any of the passengers to lend me a fist.
[UK] ‘Rampant Moll Was A Rum Old Mot’ Secret Songster 5: She palaver’d avay, but ’twas useless to say, / For guilty she soon vas found.
[UK]Thackeray Yellowplush Papers in Works III (1898) 345: That’s the rale undoubted thruth; and it’s only to keep you out of litherary life that he’s palavering you in this way.
[UK]Kendal Mercury 14 Feb. 3/3: The skipper and other members of the vagabond fraternity are ‘palavering the flats for balsam’ (humbugging the people for the coppers).
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 71: palaver to ask, or talk ? not deceitfully, as the term usually signifies; ‘palaver to his nibs for a shant of bivvy,’ ask the master for a quart of beer. In this sense used by Tramps.
[UK]C. Reade Hard Cash II 132: I’m not to be trifled with: I am not to be palarvered.
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[Ire]C.J. Kickham Knocknagow 90: Mammas manoeuvred for him; papas palavered him; daughters exhausted all their arts and their patience to capture him.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Apr. 10/3: The lodger stoutly denied stealing the stout, but frankly admitted having transferred it from glass to pigskin, with results beneficial to himself and he hoped satisfactory to the owner. The groggist, however, was not to be palavered over in this way, and he at once sternly demanded payment in full for the vanished liquor.
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 24 June 2/1: Justin McCarthy, instead of palavering the miserable Roseberyites, would be very much better employed [etc.].
[US]Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 147: The Jurors heard how the Agent palavered the Hay-Seed.
[US]L.A. Herald 26 Apr. 62/3: It was suggested that they should palaver him with a view to the mate being landed among them.

3. to talk insincerely.

[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Sept. n.p.: Eevrything that they have done for the last three years has been what is called ‘put up’ from within. All that they had to do was to go in and ‘palaver’ a moment.
[US]Courier (Lincoln, NE) 1 June 3/2: Give me truth and candor [...] in preference to [a] palavering promise that purposes no fulfillment.
[US]Iron Co. Record (Cedar City, UT) 14 Mar. 4/2: [He] has not got over his early training to pander and palaver to what he considers the gentry.

4. (UK black) to go around, to wander about.

[UK](con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 7: ‘If me hear that you’re palavering with any gal again, I will sack you so quick.’ [Ibid.] 157: Palavering about in the dead of night nicking bits of wood.

In derivatives

palaverer (n.)

1. an insincere (if plausible) speaker; a flatterer, a flirt .

[UK]Berks. Chron. 19 Mar. 4/4: No matter what the subject—new as the first blush of any business, or older than all the hills on the habitable globe, the palaverer forthwith gives tongue.
Londonderry Sentinel 12 Mar. 4/4: [T]hat’s not to be humbugged out of our daily potatoes by the blarney of any soft-tongued palaverer from the land of crowdy and brose.
[Ire]Mayo Constitution 20 Feb. 3/3: Dean Burke—the sweetest, most devoted, honey-tongued, palaverer of a Priest in the whole diocese.
Elgin Courant 13 jan. 4/4: Palmerston, the pet palaverer of Parliament.
[UK]Jersey Indep. 22 Feb. 4/2: He called Lord Brougham a ‘nasty palaverer,’ and believed he only gave the people ‘soft sawder’.
[Scot]Edinburgh Eve. News 13 Aug. 4/2: After this Pharisaical flourish the grand old palaverer assured his thousand of stomach worshippers that confidence is restored.
[UK]Reynolds’s Newspaper 19 Oct. 3/3: The letters M.P. have come to signify Maundering Palaverer. By a false estimate of such persons, much of the force of the Democracy is wasted.
[US]M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 202: palaverer, a flatterer. ‘I can’t believe what he says ’cause he’s such an old palaverer’.
[Scot]Fife Free Press 27 Jan. 12/4: [cartoon caption] The Pilgrim and The Palaverer.

2. (Aus.) a fluent conversationalist.

Cornwall Press (Launceston, Tas.) 10 Mar. 3/3: If a man speaks his native language with fluency or elegance he is said to have ‘the gift of the gab,’ [...] to be a ‘palaverer’.
palavering (n.)

chatter, discussion, usu. seen as insincere or pointless.

[UK]Cobbett’s Wkly Political Register 29 Nov. 2/2: No regiments of tax gatherers; [...] no palavering; no canting patriotism.
[UK]D. Carey Life in Paris 423: As for their nephew’s palavering and nonsense, ’twas just his way with all young women.
[UK](con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 122: No more palavering, Titus.
[US]D. Corcoran Picking from N.O. Picayune 54: Wasn’t it his sweet talk [...] wasn’t it such palaverin’ that ruined me karakter?
[US]‘Hugh McHugh’ I’m from Missouri 79: They’s so much political palaverin’ goin’ on around here.
[US]S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 164: Makes me tired, his everlasting palavering and soft-soaping.
[Ire]L. Doyle Dear Ducks 81: There was a wee bit of palaverin’, but not much.