Jabberwocky Glossary

*Note: A table like this was found at Dick VandeVelde's Jabberwocky page @ Loyola, but it was inexplicably missing "Carrol's explanation" entries for the last three words of the first stanza. The omission had also been propagated at The Ultimate Jabberwocky Page.
 
  There are basically two sets of clues for undersanding the first stanza of this famous nonsensical poem in Chapter 1 of the sequel to Alice. One is a privately produced "periodical" which the 23-year old Carroll himself illustrated and hand-printed for his brothers and sisters. This, entitled Misch-Masch, featured the hand-lettered poem as follows:

The other clue is found in Through the Looking Glass itself, in Chapter 6, where Humpty Dumpty explains the poem to Alice.
 
  These have been tabulated below.

(derived from the verb to BRYL^† or BROIL )
'the time of broiling dinner, i.e. the close of the afternoon.

Four o'clock in the afternoon — the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.

(compounded of SLIMY and LITHE)
Smooth and active.

…Lithe and slimy. Lithe is the same as 'active.' ... It's like a portmanteau —there are two meanings packed up into one word.

A species of Badger. They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag; lived chiefly on cheese.

Something like badgers —they're something like lizards—and they are something like corkscrews. …They make their nests under sundials— also they live on cheese.

verb (derived from GYAOUR or GIAOUR^† 'a dog').
To scratch like a dog.

To go round and round like a gyroscope.

(whence GIMBLET^†)
'To screw out holes in anything.'

To make holes like a gimlet.

(derived from the verb to SWAB or SOAK).
'The side of a hill' (from its being soaked by the rain).

ALICE: And 'the wabe' is the grass plot round a sundial, I suppose?
DUMPTY: Of course it is. It's called 'wabe,' you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it —
ALICE: And a long way beyond it on each side.

(whence MIMSERABLE and MISERABLE).
'unhappy'.

Flimsy and miserable.

An extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials: they lived on veal.

A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something like a live mop.

(hence SOLEMOME, SOLEMONE, and SOLEMN).
'Grave.'^†

I'm not certain about mome. I think it's short for 'from home' — meaning that they'd lost their way.

A species of land turtle. Head erect: mouth like a shark: forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees: smooth green body: lived on swallows and oysters.

A rath is a sort of green pig.

(It is connected with old verb to GRIKE, or SHRIKE, from which are derived 'shriek' and 'creak').
'Squeaked.'

Outgribing is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.

The 23-year old Carroll in Misch-Masch then goes on to explain the stanza as follows:

Hence the literal English of the passage is: 'It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hill-side; all unhappy were the parrots; and the grave turtles squeaked out.' There were probably sundials on the top of the hill, and the 'borogoves' were afraid that their nests would be undermined. The hill was probably full of the nests of 'raths', which ran out, squeaking with fear, on hearing the 'toves' scratching outside. This is an obscure, but yet deeply-affecting, relic of ancient Poetry.

Carroll when asked permission from the Girls' Latin School in Boston for permission to name their school paper The Jabberwock, replied:

“ …He finds that the Anglo-Saxon word "wocer" or "wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit". Taking "jabber" in its ordinary acceptation of "excited and voluble discussion," this would give the meaning of "the result of much excited discussion." ”