gibber
Americanverb (used without object)
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gibbers,
present (3rd person singular)
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gibbered,
past participle, past
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gibbering
present participle
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to speak inarticulately or meaninglessly.
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to speak foolishly; chatter.
noun
verb
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to utter rapidly and unintelligibly; prattle
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(intr) (of monkeys and related animals) to make characteristic chattering sounds
noun
noun
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a stone or boulder
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(modifier) of or relating to a dry flat area of land covered with wind-polished stones
gibber plains
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gibbersimple
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gibberssimple
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have gibberedperfect
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has gibberedperfect
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am gibberingprogressive
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are gibberingprogressive
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is gibberingprogressive
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have been gibberingperfect progressive
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has been gibberingperfect progressive
Past
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gibberedsimple
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had gibberedperfect
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was gibberingprogressive
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were gibberingprogressive
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had been gibberingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gibber
1595–1605; origin uncertain; perhaps frequentative of gib (obsolete) to caterwaul ( see gib 2); sense and pronunciation influenced by association with jabber
Vocabulary lists containing gibber
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:
Some of them may gibber at you, particularly if they're coming up.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 9, 2012
"I like your watch," he says while I gibber into his big, beautiful, travel-befuddled face.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 18, 2010
And the ocean turned out to gibber rather than murmur.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 25, 2010
Whatever cocktail-party gibber is stirred by the Memoirs will not stem from any of the above.
From Time Magazine Archive
For a moment she stared incredulous, as if he had begun to gibber in an unknown tongue-"Stannis and Renly are fighting each other!"
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Today, as Amanda in Private Lives, she whines, gibbers and snorts with all the grace of an untutored Eliza Doolittle.
From Time Magazine Archive
It grins, and gibbers, and utters its gibes, day and night.
From Mohun, or, the Last Days of Lee by John Esten Cooke
He never came back, and I often wonder if he is dead, or if he still gibbers about his millions in some asylum for the insane.
From The Road by Jack London
He pursues after the fleeing form that seems so fair, and when he reaches her side, and lifts her veil, eager to embrace the tempter, a hideous skeleton grins and gibbers at him.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Psalms by Alexander Maclaren
Two men in each gang are "splitters"; two "gibbers."
From American Merchant Ships and Sailors by Willis J. (Willis John) Abbot
In Puritan poems, the forest gibbered and howled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2016
Very quickly, soldiers began emerging with bizarre symptoms; they shuddered and gibbered or became unable to speak at all.
From New York Times ● Jun. 10, 2016
And sometimes I have to remind myself that in addition to being Terry Gilliam the great director, Terry Gilliam the visionary, this is also Cardinal Fang, the one who gibbered about the Spanish Inquisition.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 22, 2014
Newman complained during his life time of the phantoms that "gibbered" instead of the real him.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2010
He growled and gibbered at them like a witch hare and those nearest to him fell back in fear.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Hermes leads them, gibbering like bats, past various underworld landmarks, the white rock of Leukas, etc., and on their way they pass the δῆμον ὀνείρων, which Homer leaves undescribed and unexplained.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 17, 2018
That sort of vitriol might have once been dismissed as the vile but essentially harmless gibbering of a clutch of lost boys.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2018
The men who leer after Candy are truly fatuous primates, fit for little but gibbering at the moon.
From New York Times ● Jul. 16, 2018
Because while it is a very nice place, with a good French-dominated wine list, Walter Manzke’s turbocharged bistro cooking could turn just about anyone into a gibbering, gluttonous fool.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2017
“Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist, and that I am not a gibbering moron.”
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
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.
