babble

CEFRC2

/ˈbæb.(ə)l/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To talk quickly and unclearly, often about unimportant things.

  2. 02

    noun

    Unclear or meaningless speech.

Examples

  • I do tend to babble at times.

  • The happy baby began to babble cheerfully in her crib.

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
2

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. To talk incoherently; to utter meaningless words.

  2. To talk too much; to chatter; to prattle.

  3. To utter words indistinctly or unintelligibly; to utter inarticulate sounds

More examples

In context

  • The sounds babies make when they babble seem to contain a lot of anterior consonants.

  • She babbled on for hours about the importance of some new gadget.

  • The men were babbling, so we couldn't make sense of anything.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The happy baby began to blank nonsense that made everyone smile.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

From Middle English babelen, from Old English *bæblian, also wæflian (“to talk foolishly”), from Proto-West Germanic *bablōn, *wablōn, variants of *babalōn, from Proto-Germanic *babalōną (“to chatter”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰa-bʰa-, perhaps a reduplication of Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to say”), or a variant of Proto-Indo-European *baba- (“to talk vaguely, mumble”), or a merger of the two, possibly ultimately onomatopoeic/mimicry of infantile sounds (compare babe, baby). Cognate with Saterland Frisian babbelje (“to babble”), West Frisian babbelje (“to babble”), Dutch babbelen (“to babble, chat”), German Low German babbeln (“to babble”), German babbeln (“to babble”), Danish bable, b...