gurgle
verb (used without object)
to flow in a broken, irregular, noisy current.
were gurgling
-
past progressiveof gurgle.past progressive
Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
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.
There were gurgling, cooing, month-and-a-half old newborns in Brooklyn and Westchester who had never known the soul-emptying pain of a crushing Knicks defeat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
There were organs and drums and trumpets; there were little thrush flutes and bullfinch pipes; there were gurgling brooks and singing water-sprites, tinkling bluebells and thrumming woodpeckers.
From The Emperor of Portugalia by Velma Swanston Howard
The rain, too, had filled the brooks, and their waters were gurgling down deep, shadowy dells, mingling their touching music with the sad, sighing wind.
From The Von Toodleburgs Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family by A. R. Waud
While tossing from side to side, I felt the vessel strike as if gently touching a bank; and wood being a good conductor of sound, I heard the water, as it were, gurgling in.
From Lands of the Slave and the Free Cuba, the United States, and Canada by Henry A. Murray
And Nature possibly followed her example; for at sunset a great thaw set in, and by midnight the freed rivers and brooks were gurgling melodiously, and tree and shrub and fence were moist and dripping.
From Thankful Blossom by Bret Harte
