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.
-
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
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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
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
Only hours later, when I began to babble incoherently, did my OB realize that the doctor in question had missed my epidural space.
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2023
She kept it at bay with her babble.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
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
He inserted reams of text in his work, added babbles of voices, stopped and started the flow, inundated the soundtrack with music, flooded the screen with color.
From New York Times ● Sep. 13, 2022
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
I listened to their babbles and tried to echo the sounds I heard.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 15, 2022
But Mags tugs on my sleeve and babbles on until I’ve given the awl to her.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
Meanwhile, Whoopi stepped up the blotting, offering comforting words to Jones while Behar babbled on in her own defense.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2025
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
German reports said Arthur E was a diamond trader who had "babbled like a brook" after his arrest.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2023
She was charismatic and charming; I babbled on like a teenager meeting an onscreen idol.
From Salon ● May 25, 2023
I cried out and must have babbled something.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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
"America is a big place with 350 plus million people all babbling over their identity and their agency and those struggles create interesting patterns," he says.
From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026
Today, he can barely get out a sentence without babbling.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2025
"I was off my rocker when she let me out. I was babbling like an idiot."
From "Matilda" by Roald Dahl
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
