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babbling

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

A stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

babuhling

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbæbəlɪŋ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. uncountable

    A stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words

  2. countableuncountable

    Sounds produced by infant during the babbling period

  3. countableuncountable

    Idle senseless talk; prattle.

  4. countableuncountable

    A confused murmur, as of a stream.

adjective

  1. That babbles.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words

Used this way, babbling is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Family/home

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.

Stage / sounds

babbling stagecanonical babbling

Confused

babbling brookbabbling stream

Other combinations

babbling likestop babbling

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • babbleverbBase word

    Utter meaningless sounds, like a baby, or utter in an incoherent way.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • babblernounPerson or profession

    An obnoxious and foolish and loquacious talker.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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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.