jabber
Americanverb (used with or without object)
-
jabbers,
present (3rd person singular)
-
jabbered,
past participle, past
-
jabbering
present participle
noun
-
jabbers
plural
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
jabbersimple
-
jabberssimple
-
have jabberedperfect
-
has jabberedperfect
-
am jabberingprogressive
-
are jabberingprogressive
-
is jabberingprogressive
-
have been jabberingperfect progressive
-
has been jabberingperfect progressive
Past
-
jabberedsimple
-
had jabberedperfect
-
was jabberingprogressive
-
were jabberingprogressive
-
had been jabberingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of jabber
Explanation
When someone starts to jabber, they start talking on and on about this or that, or that or this, in an excited, sometimes incoherent way. Jabber is a close cousin to blabber. When someone jabbers, sometimes their words seem to fly out of their mouths like quick punches (jabs!) from a boxer. Some examples of jabber? You know, like when someone has a hobby that you don’t really care about or understand but they won’t quit talking about it? Yeah, they jabber. Or your best friend is relating, without end, his excitement about the coming tiddlywinks championship and you comprehend neither the game nor its importance? That friend jabbers, too.
Vocabulary lists containing jabber
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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:
Marine Le Pen said the press conference was "yet another interminable jabber".
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2024
Jacobs-Jenkins renders him as a wry, friendly figure who occasionally takes over the bodies of the other characters to explain what is happening beneath their jabber.
From New York Times ● Jun. 5, 2023
This accursed Olympiad has brought a lot—a lot—of jabber about diversity and inclusion and athlete safety and athlete centeredness.
From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2021
If there were, the loudest mouth and wittiest jabber would have thought of it by now.
From Washington Post ● May 4, 2020
The sound was like the muffled jabber of parakeets.
From "The Stranger" by Albert Camus
The men’s antagonism deepens as Wake jabbers and Winslow rages, a fury that Pattinson makes visible with eyes that widen into bulges and tremors of emotion that ping under a masklike vacancy.
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2019
Lorena jabbers on about something, but I’m not really paying attention because she calls herself a restauraNteur, so she loses all credibility in my book.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 17, 2011
"Yeah, John Kirk, yeah!" writes, or shouts, or yells, or jabbers Piers Gee.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 16, 2010
Now, in orchestrated and intermittent darkness, something less familiar is afoot as Firs, an old man in a nightshirt, with staring eyes, urges us to enter and jabbers at us in Russian.
From The Guardian ● May 8, 2010
I think, be jabbers, that I'll wait for this harvest until the seed is ripe, and then bury part of a head where I dig a root, as the Indians did.
From The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter
We jabbered about whether Bryant was better than Michael Jordan and the intense rivalry between the Sixers and the Lakers in the 1980s as we waited for Bryant’s face to flash again on the screen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2024
It was a woman in a blue dress who stood in a stairwell above them, gazing upward in a warm beam of light as Rep. Matt Gaetz jabbered at her feet.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2019
A year back, organizational swamis jabbered about Dominic Smith, the first baseman of the future.
From New York Times ● Aug. 1, 2018
The Oakland, Calif., native was one of the game's notorious trash-talkers, who jabbered away at opposing players, coaches and fans while constantly bobbing his head.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2013
Then, while magpies jabbered like a bunch of excited monkeys in the branches overhead, and with two sparrowhawks quiet on the telephone lines across by the highway, Joe fell into a peculiar reverie.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
Gone was all the jabbering and minutia that was presented, and only the important information was conveyed to the fan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2024
There will be more jabbering Thursday, each team jockeying for what might be another historic final say.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2023
Rogan’s mellow dudespeak sounds nothing like the late Rush Limbaugh’s smug scoffing, or Glenn Beck’s exasperated jabbering, or Alex Jones’s shouty, pro-wrestler-in-a-helicopter-crash thing.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 9, 2022
The larger question is how much damage, direct and collateral, has been done to the sport since this jabbering over money went public, even if it ends with some semblance of a season.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 18, 2020
Cain has slipped away from the still-packed amphitheater, unnoticed by the jabbering crowd.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
