gobble
1 Americanverb (used without object)
noun
-
gobbles
plural
noun
interjection
verb
verb
-
to eat or swallow (food) hastily and in large mouthfuls
-
informal to snatch
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of gobble1
1595–1605; probably imitative; see gob 1, -le
Origin of gobble2
First recorded in 1670–80; variant of gabble
Explanation
To gobble is to eat quickly — really quickly. When you gobble your dinner, you hardly even chew your food. You’ve probably been told that gobbling your food is impolite. However, maybe you can get away with it if you impress your dining companions with some interesting facts about this word’s history. Gobble comes from an Old French word meaning “a mouthful” or “a lump.” It’s related to gob, a slang term for “mouth” in the UK.
Vocabulary lists containing gobble
"When Cultures Meet"
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Crenshaw
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The Circuit
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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:
Still, it’s hard to shake the feeling that FIFA, in its desire to gobble every dollar, has unlocked a new luxury market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
In recent days, she said, she’s been surprised by the eye-popping household incomes of those trying to gobble up typical two-bedroom apartments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 18, 2026
For all the recent worries that AI will destroy whole industries and gobble up tech’s cash, Chronert says the ongoing spending boom will boost profits this year.
From Barron's ● Feb. 27, 2026
Jackrabbits or other critters that need the water encased in the plant often gobble them up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
I want to make fire! thought Tiamat, as she started to gobble the livers.
From "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" by Bruce Coville
Broadcasters are struggling as Americans cut the cable cord and social media gobbles up local advertising dollars.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
The answer, for that sample, was: mostly Desmodesmus, a green algae that gobbles up phosphorus and nitrogen.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026
Lately, she’s making a feast of roles that all remind me of that old sitcom episode in which Lucille Ball gobbles chocolates on a conveyor belt.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
Meanwhile, the consumer-electronics world faces an acute memory-chip shortage, as AI-infrastructure demand gobbles up semiconductor supplies and thus threatens to drive up the price of things like smartphones and laptops.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 25, 2026
There were tootles and grumbles and rumbles and sighs and gobbles and giggles and even a woof.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
I wrote a daily newsletter about energy policy at the time, and, in my efforts to be at the forefront of the news, I gobbled up those nuggets as well.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
“Anything that is available in the United States is gobbled up immediately,” Murphy said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
On the remote east side of Mono Lake, he said the animals gobbled down grass, roots and all, depriving certain birds of the worms that live in the vegetation — their sustenance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Of course, not all shipwrecks find themselves in such relatively hospitable conditions—the Titanic, for instance, is slowly being gobbled up by iron-eating bacteria.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
They wandered through the spires and turrets of Luna Park, rode more rides, gobbled peanuts, and guzzled more Cokes.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Finally, soaring medical costs are gobbling up family and government budgets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
His previous feature, 2016’s love-it-or-hate-it loony toon “The Neon Demon,” was a modeling industry semi-satire that featured beauties quite literally gobbling up their ingenue competition.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
But he learned how to make pizza, and how much customers loved gobbling it up, while working at different gas station mini-marts around rural Nevada.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
AI firms' growing pursuit of computing capacity is driving demand for energy to power data centres, as well as gobbling up rare raw materials for many of the high-end chips required.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
Kaylee says, gobbling down two bites of eggs and a swig of juice.
From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen
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.
