gobble

¹ American  

[gob-uhl] / ˈgɒb əl /

verb (used with object)

gobbled, gobbling

1. to swallow or eat hastily or hungrily in large pieces; gulp.

   Synonyms:

   devour, bolt

2. to seize upon eagerly (often followed byup ).

   After being gone for so long, they gobbled up all the local news.

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verb (used without object)

gobbled, gobbling

1. to eat hastily.

gobble ² American  

[gob-uhl] / ˈgɒb əl /

verb (used without object)

gobbled, gobbling

1. to make the characteristic throaty cry of a male turkey.

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noun

• gobbles
  plural

1. the cry itself.

gobble ¹ British  

/ ˈɡɒbəl /

noun

1. the loud rapid gurgling sound made by male turkeys

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interjection

1. an imitation of this sound

verb

1. (intr) (of a turkey) to make this sound

gobble ² British  

/ ˈɡɒbəl /

verb

1. to eat or swallow (food) hastily and in large mouthfuls

2. informal to snatch

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• gobbles
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of gobble¹

1595–1605; probably imitative; see gob ¹, -le

Origin of gobble²

First recorded in 1670–80; variant of gabble

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gobble gobbles gobbled gobbling

So you’ll find that ETFs will gobble up the more established and safe-relatively safe-crypto assets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

The deal comes as AI data centers gobble up power, leaving companies worried about their ability to secure sufficient energy for future endeavors.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 6, 2026

It isn’t the first folding phone, but analysts expect it will gobble up the category, capturing 40% of all foldables by the end of 2027, research firm IDC estimates.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026

Balds — fish lovers themselves — can consume hooks and sinkers when they gobble down their prey, potentially poisoning them, Koh said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026

I’d watch him gobble the food, then poop it out, then swim around and around once again.

From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper

Micron’s profits have surged as Big Tech’s AI expansion gobbles up the supply of available memory chips.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 23, 2026

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

The stock has soared as it expands its nearly 3,000-location footprint, gobbles up market share, and delivers some of the most consistent performance in retail.

From Barron's ● Dec. 4, 2025

There were tootles and grumbles and rumbles and sighs and gobbles and giggles and even a woof.

From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli

All that promise started to wither around 2015, as social media giants gobbled up more and more of the profits that kept earlier hangouts afloat.

From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026

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

For decades, the stocks of major global miners have essentially been a proxy bet on China’s economy, as its infrastructure and real-estate buildout gobbled up huge volumes of the iron ore that powered miners’ profits.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026

Alfred gobbled it down as fast as he could.

From "The Contender" by Robert Lipsyte

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

Chinese car manufacturers are gobbling up European market share, especially in electric vehicles, and are rapidly expanding market share at the expense of the European automobile companies.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026

But now AI servers are gobbling up rapidly increasing volumes of those chips, so even a company as rich and powerful as Apple is struggling to secure supply.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026

Tech giants are gobbling up memory chips for AI servers, leaving Apple with soaring component costs that Tim Cook says will inevitably be passed on to consumers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026

“Because we gobble up all the nasty little insects that are gobbling up all the farmer’s crops. It helps enormously, and we ourselves don’t charge a penny for our services.”

From "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl

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Related Words

• devour
• gulp
• guzzle
• swallow

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