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:
It's one of the novel's funniest scenes: the men gibber through a jungle – lost in space and out of their Edwardian gourds.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 11, 2010
"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
At night, rats squeak and gibber around the bases of the monuments.
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
Two men in each gang are "splitters"; two "gibbers."
From American Merchant Ships and Sailors by Willis J. (Willis John) Abbot
Or are we to assume that he gibbers?
From Pot-Boilers by Clive Bell
Northly or Southly may I ride or walk Beneath the glacial Crag or fronded Stalk, But still the Spectre gibbers in my Ears And drowns my Spirits in a Sea of Talk.
From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. by Wallace Irwin
They say he appears and grovels on the ground and holds you by the legs and gibbers and moans like he did when he was alive.
From Rainbow Valley by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
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
"I … I thought it was high," he gibbered, before trying to get fellow showbiz guests to bellow his catchphrase at him.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 7, 2012
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
Wodehouse never exhausted the counterpoint between Bertie’s slangy gibbering and half-remembered literary allusions with Jeeves’ carefully modulated responses: “Very well, Jeeves, you agree with me that the situation is a lulu?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
Being a good host doesn’t mean you have to spend two hours gibbering in horror, being glared at by innocent people just trying to enjoy a nice meal.
From Slate ● Mar. 9, 2020
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
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
Buckland ended up by losing his mind and finished his days a gibbering wreck in a lunatic asylum in Clapham, not far from where Mantell had suffered his crippling accident.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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.
