🇺🇸
/ˈbæblɪŋ/
🇺🇸
/ˈbæblɪŋ/
🇬🇧
/ˈbæblɪŋ/
🇬🇧
/ˈbæblɪŋ/
Plural
babblings
Past Tense
babbled
Past Participle
babbled
Gerund
babbling
3rd Person
babbles
Babbling is the act of speaking rapidly, incoherently, or without clear meaning — often due to excitement, nervousness, confusion, or early language development. It can also describe the gentle, repetitive sound of flowing water, like a brook gurgling over stones.
The toddler sat on the floor, happily babbling strings of made-up words.
She was so flustered during the interview that she started babbling about her pet goldfish instead of her qualifications.
We fell asleep to the soothing sound of the babbling brook outside our cabin.
He kept babbling excuses, but no one believed him anymore.
Her babbling stream of consciousness filled the entire journal page with fragmented thoughts and dreams.
babble
Comes from Middle English 'bablen', imitative of repetitive, meaningless speech sounds; ultimately echoic in origin (not derived from classical roots), reflecting reduplication of consonant-vowel syllables like 'ba-ba' or 'ba-ba-ba'. Examples include babble, babbling, babbler, and related onomatopoeic words such as 'gabble', 'prattle', and 'mumble'. Core meaning: spontaneous, unstructured, often infantile or incoherent vocalization.