babble
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To talk too much.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
babuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbæbəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To talk too much; to chatter; to prattle.
To talk foolishly
“The two women babbled and crooned at the baby.”
intransitive
To utter words indistinctly or unintelligibly; to utter inarticulate sounds
intransitive
To talk incoherently; to utter meaningless words.
Utter meaningless sounds, like a baby, or utter in an incoherent way
“The old man is only babbling--don't pay attention.”
intransitive
To make a continuous murmuring noise, like shallow water running over stones.
noun
Idle talk; senseless prattle
Inarticulate speech; constant or confused murmur.
A sound like that of water gently flowing around obstructions.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To talk too much; to chatter; to prattle.
Used this way, babble is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Gibberish resembling the sounds of a baby.
An obnoxious and foolish and loquacious talker.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Divulge confidential information or secrets.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: idle talk
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.