babble
Americanverb (used without object)
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babbles,
present (3rd person singular)
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babbled,
past participle, past
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babbling
present participle
verb (used with object)
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babbles,
present (3rd person singular)
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babbled,
past participle, past
-
babbling
present participle
-
to utter in an incoherent, foolish, or meaningless fashion.
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to reveal foolishly or thoughtlessly.
to babble a secret.
noun
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inarticulate or imperfect speech.
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foolish, meaningless, or incoherent speech; prattle.
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a murmuring sound or a confusion of sounds.
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Telecommunications. a confused mixture of extraneous sounds in a circuit, resulting from cross talk from other channels.
verb
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to utter (words, sounds, etc) in an incoherent or indistinct jumble
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(intr) to talk foolishly, incessantly, or irrelevantly
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(tr) to disclose (secrets, confidences, etc) carelessly or impulsively
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(intr) (of streams, birds, etc) to make a low murmuring or bubbling sound
noun
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incoherent or foolish speech; chatter
-
a murmuring or bubbling sound
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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babblesimple
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babblessimple
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have babbledperfect
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has babbledperfect
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am babblingprogressive
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are babblingprogressive
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is babblingprogressive
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have been babblingperfect progressive
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has been babblingperfect progressive
Past
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babbledsimple
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had babbledperfect
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was babblingprogressive
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were babblingprogressive
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had been babblingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of babble
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English babelen; cognate with Old Norse babbla, Dutch babbelen, German pappelen
Explanation
To babble is to talk on and on without a particular goal. It might drive you crazy when your little sister babbles endlessly about her favorite video game. Babble sounds like Babel, the Biblical tower where everyone was talking in their own language. Everyone was babbling without paying attention to their neighbors, like the kid who won’t stop talking about his trip to the water park three years ago. A stream or a brook can babble, too, but that’s more of a soothing sound of water against rocks. Babies gurgle, because they don’t have enough words to babble yet.
Vocabulary lists containing babble
Instead of "Said": Words That Sound Like What They Mean
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Mother's Day Words: What Mothers Do
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Unit 4: Powerful Openings
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Instead he softened the blow with corporate babble: “You were building the plane while you flew it.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026
Meanwhile, the southern pied babbler does not, in fact, merely babble.
From Salon ● May 29, 2025
Standing at the mouth of the tunnel, the constant babble of cascading water dominates the senses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2025
Above us swallows dart through the air, Graeme takes a picture of a damsel fly and the brook to our side continues to babble.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2024
I try to meditate on the sound of Gran’s voice, to be carried away by her happy babble.
From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman
Another highlight is Toinette’s impersonation of a doctor, in which Ms. Bloom babbles nonsense in a globe-trotting accent.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026
A pond babbles outside the window, and a garden of succulents climbs up to claim the wooden exterior walls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2022
Kente babbles on about a mill; the workers struggle to understand what he’s on about even as they try to explain what they’re doing.
From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2022
I listened to their babbles and tried to echo the sounds I heard.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 15, 2022
She looks straight into my eyes and babbles a greeting.
From "Amina's Song" by Hena Khan
I spent days pressing a light-up toy when we said his name to draw his attention and babbled incessantly in his face so he could copy my lip patterns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
Lutnick showed up on CBS' "Face the Nation" and babbled so incoherently about robots and manufacturing and "tiny screws" that you had to wonder if someone put something in his morning coffee.
From Salon ● Apr. 7, 2025
German reports said Arthur E was a diamond trader who had "babbled like a brook" after his arrest.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2023
Sophie babbled from her car seat after Maggie picked her up from another unpaid child care session with Adam.
From Slate ● Mar. 25, 2023
Lupita mourned for him as the young woman babbled to Salvador, “Gracias, gracias, thank you for what you did for me.”
From "Lupita Mañana" by Patricia Beatty
In a documentary last year, he recounted a middle-aged deliveryman who was reduced to a babbling fanboy when he spied the movie poster on Conner’s wall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
The phrase echoed the one I had spoken years earlier to a babbling toddler in a Baltimore church.
From Slate ● Mar. 29, 2026
Fortunately, almost as soon as Dek lands on Genna, a planet of murderous flora, to bag his Kalisk, he runs into a babbling half-robot missing her legs who makes the movie much more compelling.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2025
Haden Pentecost, 41, was working on a flight from California to London when he started to become agitated and was described as "sweating" and "babbling".
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2025
They can’t be expected to learn the languages of all the different species they deal with, babbling across the galaxy, some of them speaking in smells or patterned light.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
