gabble
/ˈɡab(ə)l
/verb [no object]
Talk rapidly and unintelligibly: he gabbled on in a panicky way until he was dismissed...
- Around them bustles Ceicao, an ancient village woman, who cackles and gabbles as she throws sticks and pokes the ashes of the fire, raising cinders like showers of fireworks.
- ‘Not a problem,’ he gabbles, so rattled he's not noticed that the important fields are filled out in pencil.
- ‘Hello, Ty,’ she says, the bucket gently sloshing, the solid air rent by the blast of the speakers, the crowd gabbling, her unflinching eyes locked on mine.
Synonyms
jabber, babble, prattle, rattle, blabber, gibber, cackle, blab, drivel, twitter, splutter;
talk rapidly, talk incoherently, talk unintelligibly
British informal waffle, chunter, witter
noun [mass noun]
Rapid unintelligible talk: she wasn’t very good at the random gabble of teenagers...
- There was some tired bureaucratic gabble - ‘An in-depth process that includes accountability will provide progress.’
- I've learned his gabble is usually honey talk but occasionally it can be coercion.
- Another personality was Harry Hemsley, who had a little boy who spoke in an unintelligible gabble, but was understood perfectly well by his elder sister.
Synonyms
jabbering, babbling, chattering, gibbering, babble, chatter, rambling;
gibberish, drivel, twaddle, nonsense
informal flannel, blah, mumbo jumbo
British informal waffle, waffling, chuntering, double Dutch
Derivatives
gabbler
/ noun ...- Straight-as-a-die on a Friday lunchtime, he is an opinionated gabbler, king of the mood swingers, rude about everyone, and quite possibly the most bombastic person in the history of the bombasticism.
- I am interested in stories half-told and mistakenly heard; the sort caught in snatches from the gabblers and whisperers across the room at empty bars on Wednesday afternoons, while the decent folk are still at work in office parks and city hall.
- The serious and the facile, the scribblers and the gabblers, the structuralists and the screenwriters all hang in, watching those films, occasionally disputing them - but, sad to say, almost never asking an intelligent question in the press conferences.
Origin
Late 16th century: from Dutch gabbelen, of imitative origin.