drivel
Americannoun
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saliva flowing from the mouth, or mucus from the nose; slaver.
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childish, silly, or meaningless talk or thinking; nonsense; twaddle.
verb (used without object)
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drivels,
present (3rd person singular)
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driveled,
past participle, past
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drivelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
driveling,
present participle
-
drivelling
present participle (especially British)
-
to let saliva flow from the mouth or mucus from the nose; slaver.
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to talk childishly or idiotically.
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Archaic. to issue like spittle.
verb (used with object)
-
drivels,
present (3rd person singular)
-
driveled,
past participle, past
-
drivelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
driveling,
present participle
-
drivelling
present participle (especially British)
-
to utter childishly or idiotically.
-
to waste foolishly.
verb
-
to allow (saliva) to flow from the mouth; dribble
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(intr) to speak foolishly or childishly
noun
-
foolish or senseless talk
-
saliva flowing from the mouth; slaver
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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drivelsimple
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drivelssimple
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have driveledperfect
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have drivelledperfect
-
has driveledperfect
-
has drivelledperfect
-
am drivelingprogressive
-
am drivellingprogressive
-
are drivelingprogressive
-
are drivellingprogressive
-
is drivelingprogressive
-
is drivellingprogressive
-
have been drivelingperfect progressive
-
have been drivellingperfect progressive
-
has been drivelingperfect progressive
-
has been drivellingperfect progressive
Past
-
driveledsimple
-
drivelledsimple
-
had driveledperfect
-
had drivelledperfect
-
was drivelingprogressive
-
was drivellingprogressive
-
were drivelingprogressive
-
were drivellingprogressive
-
had been drivelingperfect progressive
-
had been drivellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of drivel
before 1000; Middle English dryvelen, variant of drevelen, Old English dreflian; akin to draff
Explanation
Drivel is useless, boring, nonsensical information. Your parents might think the articles in your favorite fashion magazine are drivel (but they'll change their tune when you become a famous designer). Etymologists suspect drivel comes to us from the Old Norse word draf, meaning "malt dregs." This would make sense, given that drivel is usually talk or writing about as useless as dregs. If you don't prepare for an oral report, the unfortunate result may be that your teacher finds your disorganized ramblings to be pure drivel. Drivel also means to dribble saliva. If a friendly dog licks your hand, leaving it wet and gooey, you can assume he driveled on it.
Vocabulary lists containing drivel
There's No There There: Synonyms for "Empty"
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"The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet," Vocabulary from Act 2
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"The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act II
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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:
While making space for such drivel, the museum ignores huge swaths of American history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Peter: Can Rangers please employ someone to edit the post-match interview drivel that spouts from the head coach?
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2025
But quashing that speculation would likely require content more scintillating than this drivel.
From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2025
But some of the books I got were pure academic drivel, totally useless, that gave me no guidance or comfort.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2024
Abstruse calculations, geometric forms and algebraic terms, unusual correlations—all have been used to adorn the silliest drivel.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
"I was just part of this greater thing, or place, or force, or energy," he drivels, like a semi-articulate hippy.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 10, 2011
He wishes for 'a boat' to sail the deeps— Of ocean?—No, of air; and then he makes Another outcry for 'a little boat,' And drivels seas to set it well afloat.
From Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron
When charity drivels it ought to be turned off by justice!
From Hidden Hand by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
He desires to vomit; he drivels, and swallows his drivel, pretending to enjoy this little amusement.
From The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Benjamin R. Tucker
Pope, Jonson, Steevens and even Malone have made so many minute, technical changes in the Folio Plays of 1623, printed seven years after the death of Shakspere, that their presumptive elucidation often drivels into obscurity.
From Shakspere, Personal Recollections by John A. Joyce
All the way up the mountain he driveled to me about asparagus on toast, a thing that his intelligence in life had skipped.
From The Gentle Grafter by H. C. Greening
A painfully homely face with tears running from the closed eyes, with an open mouth that driveled and drooled.
From The Cost by David Graham Phillips
His mouth was drawn awry, his speech entirely inarticulate, his eye obscured by thick rheum, and his clothes were stained by the saliva that occasionally driveled from his lips.
From The Adventures of Hugh Trevor by Thomas Holcroft
Then his reflections driveled off into stupor, and he sat on an empty keg with the conical crown of his old felt hat pointed forward, and his hands hanging limply between his knees.
From Stories of the Foot-hills by Margaret Collier Graham
Well, he driveled along for a while, talking the awfulest bosh; and pretty soon he asked me if I was fond of mock-turtle soup.
From Elbow-Room A Novel Without a Plot by Charles Heber Clark
“Yet you will say to His Majesty that I did suggest–yes, I do now–that they had better not––” His utterance drivelled to incoherency.
From The Missourian by Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
"I'm naturally anxious that it may be a son," he drivelled, "as there are so few male representatives of the old name now."
From Some Everyday Folk and Dawn by Miles Franklin
Dogs, dogs," drivelled old Horace Talbot, "Beachfield 's always talking about dogs.
From The Sport of the Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar
There was no other word to express it; drivelled.
From Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
There are multitudes of cases in which, when too great a weight has been crowded on the delicate organism through which thoughts move, its balance has been upset, and it has drivelled into idiocy.
From Love to the Uttermost Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. by F. B. (Frederick Brotherton) Meyer
"I may be an old crone," grumped Princess Alice, "but I'm not driveling enough to have tea with a Teddy bear."
From Time Magazine Archive
Half of Shakespeare's characters are less creations than caricatures: a fatuous Ajax, a vicious Achilles, a sniveling Thersites, a driveling Nestor.
From Time Magazine Archive
There was considerable of it, and Miss Miranda remarked, among other things, that so absent-minded a child was sure to grow up into a driveling idiot.
From Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
He felt that he was giving up life and its every hope, but the fear of madness, or driveling idiocy, was worse than this.
From She Buildeth Her House by William Wistar Comfort
He lowered his eyes—and remained motionless, gasping for breath, dazed, with fixed eyes, fairly driveling with terror.
From Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories by Julian Hawthorne
"What a froward, drivelling flibbergib have I taken to my bosom!"
From Time Magazine Archive
“Instead of drivelling away about knots and vacuum cleaners and lions, and making me miserable for weeks and weeks.”
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
It was mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out there in the shell-hole.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. ‘Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?’
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
Do you take me for a drivelling boy, to be put off like this, Miriam?” he cried, catching at her hand, but she drew it back.
From The Story of Antony Grace by George Manville Fenn
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