Technobabble (a portmanteau of technology and babble), also called technospeak, is a form of prose using jargon, buzzwords, esoteric language, specialized technical terms, or technical slang that is incomprehensible to the listener. Various fields of practice and industry have their own specialized vocabularies (jargon) that allow those educated within that industry to concisely convey ideas that may be confusing, misleading, or nonsensical to an outside listener. So while a lay person listening to a discussion of a current research topic in mathematics may describe it as technobabble, to the mathematician, it is completely comprehensible and thus not technobabble. The key differentiator is the point of view of the listener. Technobabble can be used dishonestly to give an impression of plausibility through mystification, misdirection, and obfuscation.

The Oxford Companion to the English Language defines technobabble as: “An informal term for the use or overuse of technical jargon.” John A. Barry, in the introduction to Technobabble (MIT Press, 1991), says that “the word connotes meaningless chatter about technology” but “is also a form of communication among people in the rapidly advancing computer and other high-technology industries.” As Barry notes in Technobabble, “The word first cropped up in the early 1980s, derived from or inspired by psychobabble, the title of a 1977 book by Richard Rosen, and an entry credited to Rosen in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary.” As an early example of the word's use, Barry cites the title of a 1984 article by David Roth in Franson's Business Report on Technology: "William Safire, Eat Your Dictionary; Here Comes Technobabble."