1350–1400; Middle English drabelen < Middle Low German drabbeln to wade in liquid mud, bespatter, equivalent to drabbe liquid mud + -eln frequentative v. suffix; see drab 2, draff
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the most memorable drabble to date, Perkins evidently struck a nerve among listeners by autobiographically focusing on her insecurities about her teeth and her kissing technique in her fictional romance with Jake Gyllenhaal.
From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2018
Why don't you say that Lew Alcindor plays "dribble drabble," and Johnny Unitas "punt punt"?
From Time Magazine Archive
There was a drabble of dead leaves on the sidewalk which was of wood, and on the roadway which was of macadam and stiff mud.
From Stories of a Western Town by Thanet, Octave
Looking out on a landscape that was like a Christmas card, and remembering the drabble and jangle of the town, we were not sorry to be among the clean white hills.
From Dwellers in Arcady The Story of an Abandoned Farm by Fogarty, Thomas
The other forms, such as drabbe, dregg, and dragan, the b and v being analogous to E. draggle, drabble, draught, draft, all equally from dragan.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860 by Various
The author was born Antonia Susan Drabble on Aug. 24, 1936, and published her first novel, “The Shadow of a Sun,” in 1964.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2023
She was the sister of the novelist Margaret Drabble, and the siblings drew parallels with the Brontes, a comparison they tended to spurn.
From Reuters ● Nov. 17, 2023
Mrs Drabble said she saved money on a wedding bouquet by getting a friend to make one from paper flowers, rather than fresh ones.
From BBC ● May 11, 2023
“Oh, I just love the organ,” said Drabble, a former schoolteacher.
From New York Times ● Jan. 25, 2021
We were interrupted just then by Mrs. Drabble, who came in for the tea-things, and, as usual, held a long colloquy with her master on sundry domestic affairs.
From Uncle Max by Carey, Rosa Nouchette
The half-dozen drabbled dragons pranced and writhed and reared proudly.
From Time Magazine Archive
She used to come to school with such smooth, clean pantalets, while mine were splashed with mud, drabbled by the wet grass, or all wrinkles from having been rolled up.
From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy. by Various
Our feet were wet as it was, and the man from Boston was sadly drabbled.
From The Mutineers by Hawes, Charles Boardman
Mis-shapen, distorted, blotched, drabbled and crimsoned, it spread away to the horizons, east and west, its scars showing under the rays of the sun which shone out from the mares' tails of the departing hurricane.
From The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men by Rolt-Wheeler, Francis
A huge fire blazed upon the ample hearth, before which were spread several staff uniforms, whose drabbled and soaked appearance denoted the reason of the party's change of habiliments.
From Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 by Lever, Charles James
Slowly he raised his head and saw her, only a few paces away, eyeing him, her beak drabbling a spittle of venom, and a green ooze trickling from below her wounded eye.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
I cared nothing for the wet grass, which was sadly drabbling my clean frock,—on and on I ran: I was so sure that I knew just where that rainbow ended.
From McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader by McGuffey, William Holmes
Now, why am I compelled to wear long petticoats drabbling in the mud, when a Bavarian may wear hers up to the knees, and nobody think the worse of her?
From Flora Lyndsay or, Passages in an Eventful Life by Moodie, Susanna
They had got tired and gone to secluded corners, or to their rooms, or drabbling into the village.
From The Car That Went Abroad Motoring Through the Golden Age by Paine, Albert Bigelow
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.
