pebble

American  

[peb-uhl] / ˈpɛb əl /

noun

pebbles plural

1. a small, rounded stone, especially one worn smooth by the action of water.

2. Also called pebble leather.  leather that has been given a granulated surface.

3. any granulated or crinkled surface, especially of a textile.

4. a transparent colorless rock crystal used for the lenses of eyeglasses.

5. a lens made from this crystal.

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verb (used with object)

pebbled, pebbling

1. to prepare (leather) so as to have a granulated surface.

2. to pelt with or as with pebbles.

pebble British  

/ ˈpɛbəl /

noun

1. 1. a small smooth rounded stone, esp one worn by the action of water

   2. geology a rock fragment, often rounded, with a diameter of 4–64 mm and thus smaller than a cobble but larger than a granule

2. 1. a transparent colourless variety of rock crystal, used for making certain lenses

   2. such a lens

3. informal (modifier) (of a lens or of spectacles) thick, with a high degree of magnification or distortion

4. 1. a grainy irregular surface, esp on leather

   2. leather having such a surface

5. informal a troublesome or obstinate person or animal

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verb

1. to pave, cover, or pelt with pebbles

2. to impart a grainy surface to (leather)

pebble Scientific  

/ pĕb′əl /

1. A rock fragment larger than a granule and smaller than a cobble. Pebbles have a diameter between 4 and 64 mm (0.16 and 2.56 inches) and are often rounded.

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pebble Idioms  

1. see not the only fish in the sea (pebble on the beach).

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• pebbly
  adjective
• unpebbled
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• pebbles
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pebble

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English pibbil, puble, pobble; compare Old English pæbbel (in placenames), papel-, popel- (in compounds); phonological relations unclear

Explanation

Pebbles are the small, round stones you might find on a beach. If you want a pet rock, a smooth pebble would be a good choice. A pebble beach might not be quite as soft underfoot as a sandy one, but pebbles tend to be smooth and rounded — unlike jagged-edged rocks. A beach covered with smooth pebbles is known as a "shingle beach." The origin of the word pebble is a mystery, although some suspect a connection to the Latin papula, "pustule, pimple, or swelling."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pebble pebbles pebbled pebbling

Yet as I wrangled them into my closet, something kept nagging at me like a pebble in an insole: Bernie Sanders’ eye-rolling dismissal outside the Senate elevator.

From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026

That’s what the creator of the chain Swig calls spiking Coke, Mountain Dew or Dr Pepper with fruit purées and flavored creams, served in plastic cups stuffed with pebble ice.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026

“You throw a pebble in New York, you hit someone in therapy,” she laughs.

From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2025

A Neanderthal man is believed to have dipped his finger in red pigment to paint a nose on a pebble around 43,000 years ago.

From BBC ● May 27, 2025

Pick up a pebble from a Massachusetts beach, and its nearest kin will now be in Africa.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

The spa doesn’t offer foot massages, but there’s a 30-foot-long “jade stone walk,” with half-dome pebbles imported from Korea, on it.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026

Think of this as savory frico brittle: buttery Ritz crackers, broken into uneven pebbles and hunks, tossed with Parmesan, herbs and a little fat, then baked until the cheese melts into crisp, golden clusters.

From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026

From dawn, crowds of pilgrims gathered in the valley of Mina, southeast of the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, to throw pebbles at concrete pillars symbolising the devil.

From Barron's ● May 27, 2026

"VAR was introduced to, in Fifa's terminology, not to look for pebbles but look for boulders," former Scottish Premiership referee Bobby Madden told 5 Live.

From BBC ● May 14, 2026

That month, Darwin found more bones strewn among the pebbles and rocks.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Cordoning off their share of terrace was a pane of pebbled glass, through which Kertész could make out the forms of vacationing neighbors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

Players release the stone down the pebbled ice sheet in such a way that it curls either clockwise or anti-clockwise so they have more control over it.

From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2026

Women wearing long wigs and ornate traditional dresses milled around a pebbled courtyard, stopping to snap photos under a pavilion, as the melodious strumming of the Chinese zither played in the background.

From Barron's ● Nov. 14, 2025

The skin shares features with ancient and extant reptiles, including a pebbled surface similar to crocodile skin, and hinged regions between epidermal scales that resemble skin structures in snakes and worm lizards.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 11, 2024

The birds lay over a photograph of sky like a scattering of petals, soaring away from a pebbled leather ground toward higher and better things.

From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng

He kept going back, though, and one day curiosity got the better of him when he noticed someone pebbling the ice.

From BBC ● Feb. 17, 2026

On the job, Wuthrich walks about 10 kilometers a day; because he does the texture pebbling, Callan gets in 12 kilometers.

From New York Times ● Feb. 16, 2022

Then the pebbling process is repeated using a nozzle with a larger hole, and another scrapper nips the top of the pebbles off.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 16, 2022

The water for the ice is cleaned of impurities by a multi-tank reverse osmosis system; the water for the pebbling has also been de-ionized.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 16, 2022

There is no more violent splashing and pebbling, racing, chasing, separating. 

From The Diary of a Goose Girl by Shepperson, Claude A.

Related Words

• earth
• gravel
• lava
• metal
• rubble
• slab