garble: [15] Garble used not to have its presentday negative connotations. It originally meant simply ‘cleanse, sift, cull’: ‘[At Alexandria] all sorts of spices be garbled after the bargain is made’, Richard Hakluyt, Voyages 1599. Gradually, though, ‘taking out the worst’ and ‘selecting the best’ passed into ‘making an unfair selection’, ‘distorting by leaving things out’ and eventually simply ‘distorting meaning’.
The word itself has a convoluted pre-English history: English got it from Italian garbellare, which in turn came from Arabic gharbala ‘sift, select’, a term probably widespread in the commercial linguae francae of the Mediterranean seaboard in medieval and Renaissance times. This verb was a derivative of the Arabic noun ghirbāl ‘sieve’, which seems to have been based on the Latin verb crībellāre ‘seive’ – itself derived from crībellum, a diminutive form of crībum ‘seive’, which was related to Latin cernere ‘sift’ (source of English discern and discrete). => certain, discern, discrete
garble (v.)
early 15c., "to inspect and remove the dirt and dross from (spices)," from Anglo-French garbeler "to sift" (late 14c.) and directly from Medieval Latin and Italian garbellare, from Arabic gharbala "to sift and select spices," related to kirbal "sieve," perhaps from Late Latin cribellum, diminutive of Latin cribrum "sieve" (see crisis). Apparently the word was widespread among Mediterranean traders (compare Italian garbellare, Spanish garbillare "to sift grain").
From late 15c. in a general sense of "sort out the finer parts" of anything, "removal of what is objectionable," then "distort for some devious purpose or to give false impression;" especially "mix up, confuse or distort language" (1680s). Related: Garbled; garbling. In Middle English garbeler (Anglo-French garbelour) meant "official who garbles spices and sometimes also other dry goods" (early 15c.); it is attested from 1690s as "one who mixes up or mutilates words or language."
garble (n.)
c. 1500 of spices; by 1829 of language; from garble (v.).