babbling

[ bab-ling ]

noun

1. foolish or meaningless chatter; prattle:

   the constant babbling of idle gossips.

2. the random production of meaningless vocal sounds characteristic of infants around the age of three months.

adjective

1. chattering or prattling aimlessly:

   The babbling crowd quieted and funneled back into the auditorium at the end of intermission.

2. making a continuous murmuring sound:

   a babbling brook.

Other Words From

• bab·bling·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of babbling¹

First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English babelinde, bablyng; babble, -ing ¹ (for the noun senses), -ing ² (for the adjective)

Example Sentences

The pups’ babbling bouts were repetitive with 77 percent of the syllables uttered were succeeded by the same syllable type.

From Popular-Science

That rapid expansion might mean that practice through babbling is less important for certain bat syllables than growing the neurological and physiological capacity through normal development, she says.

From Science News

All told, she and her colleagues captured and analyzed 55,056 syllables from 216 bouts of babbling.

From Science News

Overall, “bat pup babbling is defined by the same characteristics as human infant babbling,” Fernandez says.

From Science News

The gates happened to have been manually disconnected at the time for maintenance, and the dam was actually just a narrow, 20-foot-high structure holding back a babbling brook.

From ProPublica

Language was no barrier; just about every tongue on the planet was babbling away, caught up in the elaborate mystique of a cult.

From The Daily Beast

I realize now that I spoke to her in paragraphs, babbling on and on, while she talked sparingly but concisely.

From The Daily Beast

Children splash around in the babbling river where the infection began, women washing and bathing on rocks in the sun.

From The Daily Beast

There was no babbling brook in the background—just the sound of New York traffic.

From The Daily Beast

But that arch-fiend had been deserted by the majority of his followers, and he was babbling of suicide to his fellow Brahmins.

From Project Gutenberg

He broke off in his speculations, for the notary was babbling something again.

From Project Gutenberg

Her presence gave importance to everything,—the song of a bird, the opening of a humble little flower, the babbling of water.

From Project Gutenberg

But the Dean had fallen on his knees before her, and was babbling out prayers for pardon and vows of reform.

From Project Gutenberg

Then he saw a little blue flower, shaped just like a bell, hanging on a stem over a small babbling brook of water.

From Project Gutenberg