jabber
Americanverb (used with or without object)
-
jabbers,
present (3rd person singular)
-
jabbered,
past participle, past
-
jabbering
present participle
noun
-
jabbers
plural
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
jabbersimple
-
jabberssimple
-
have jabberedperfect
-
has jabberedperfect
-
am jabberingprogressive
-
are jabberingprogressive
-
is jabberingprogressive
-
have been jabberingperfect progressive
-
has been jabberingperfect progressive
Past
-
jabberedsimple
-
had jabberedperfect
-
was jabberingprogressive
-
were jabberingprogressive
-
had been jabberingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of jabber
Explanation
When someone starts to jabber, they start talking on and on about this or that, or that or this, in an excited, sometimes incoherent way. Jabber is a close cousin to blabber. When someone jabbers, sometimes their words seem to fly out of their mouths like quick punches (jabs!) from a boxer. Some examples of jabber? You know, like when someone has a hobby that you don’t really care about or understand but they won’t quit talking about it? Yeah, they jabber. Or your best friend is relating, without end, his excitement about the coming tiddlywinks championship and you comprehend neither the game nor its importance? That friend jabbers, too.
Vocabulary lists containing jabber
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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:
Marine Le Pen said the press conference was "yet another interminable jabber".
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2024
Jacobs-Jenkins renders him as a wry, friendly figure who occasionally takes over the bodies of the other characters to explain what is happening beneath their jabber.
From New York Times ● Jun. 5, 2023
This accursed Olympiad has brought a lot—a lot—of jabber about diversity and inclusion and athlete safety and athlete centeredness.
From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2021
If there were, the loudest mouth and wittiest jabber would have thought of it by now.
From Washington Post ● May 4, 2020
Through the loosely placed boards in the wall floated the bark and jabber of a talk-radio show about the latest soccer perfidy from Argentina, Brazil’s hated rival.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
The men’s antagonism deepens as Wake jabbers and Winslow rages, a fury that Pattinson makes visible with eyes that widen into bulges and tremors of emotion that ping under a masklike vacancy.
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2019
Lorena jabbers on about something, but I’m not really paying attention because she calls herself a restauraNteur, so she loses all credibility in my book.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 17, 2011
"Yeah, John Kirk, yeah!" writes, or shouts, or yells, or jabbers Piers Gee.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 16, 2010
Now, in orchestrated and intermittent darkness, something less familiar is afoot as Firs, an old man in a nightshirt, with staring eyes, urges us to enter and jabbers at us in Russian.
From The Guardian ● May 8, 2010
It does not cry "Tuwhoo, Tuwhoo," as the poets would have it, but laughs, jabbers, squeaks and chants clamorous duets with its spouse.
From Concerning Animals and Other Matters by Edward Hamilton Aitken
We jabbered about whether Bryant was better than Michael Jordan and the intense rivalry between the Sixers and the Lakers in the 1980s as we waited for Bryant’s face to flash again on the screen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2024
It was a woman in a blue dress who stood in a stairwell above them, gazing upward in a warm beam of light as Rep. Matt Gaetz jabbered at her feet.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2019
As men jabbered around us, the woman tightened her hold on me.
From New York Times ● Aug. 28, 2013
The Oakland, Calif., native was one of the game's notorious trash-talkers, who jabbered away at opposing players, coaches and fans while constantly bobbing his head.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2013
We listened to whiny rock songs while Jessica jabbered on about the boys we hung out with.
From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
The incessant jabbering between Joe Davis and Orel Hershiser during every Dodgers game has ruined the game-watching experience for me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2024
“It was a perfect match of subversives,” the Oregonian wrote: “Wieden, the high-strung, jabbering, radical writer, and Kennedy, the taciturn, philosophical artist.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 7, 2022
Eventually, I had to conclude — reluctantly — that it was indeed him, emoting from beneath pounds of ruddy latex and jabbering in an overblown accent traceable to somewhere in the vicinity of the Netherlands.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2022
When it’s time to stop jabbering and start jabbing, he believes there will be a big difference against a fighter who’s had only about half as many professional fights.
From Seattle Times ● May 27, 2022
A blue jay swooped in front of them and started Joe Joe jabbering.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
