Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A gurgling or bubbling sound, as of running water.
  • noun A rapid, excited flow of speech.
  • noun A separation in the boundary layer of fluid about a moving streamlined body, such as the wing of an airplane, causing a breakdown in the smooth flow of fluid and resulting in turbulence.
  • intransitive verb To bubble; gurgle.
  • intransitive verb To speak quickly and excitedly; gush.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A bubble.
  • noun A small pimple.
  • To bubble; gush.
  • To welter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb to to make a burbling sound; -- used of water, especially brooks.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A bubbling, gurgling sound, as of a creek.
  • noun A gush of rapid speech.
  • noun The turbulent boundary layer about a moving streamlined body.
  • verb To bubble; to gurgle.
  • verb To babble; To speak in an excited rush.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English burblen, to bubble.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English burblen (to bubble).

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Examples

  • Thane's burble is short on something: on whom are we looking to get revenge?

    Pen and Sword 2009

  • Model Daisy Lowe is wheeled into the press day – a meter running behind her eyes – to burble about how profound a concept music and smelling good is to her existence.

    Grace Dent's TV OD: Perfume 2011

  • Regards, surely there must be some protest or demo going on somewhere so you can find more evildoers to burble on about without intelligence. on April 15, 2009 at 7: 35 pm | Reply Ranter

    London G20 Police outnumbered and attacked « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009

  • And some of that work is bound to be new and fresh and exciting, and word will hopefully burble up to me.

    MIND MELD: The Best Women Writers in SF/F 2009

  • Over the burble of the stream, the whirring of insects, and the night calls of birds, we could hear the sounds of the Kristiano camp; clanking metal, chopping, and calls mixed with the mingled voices of several Kristianos who were singing, the melody eerie and foreign.

    Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011

  • I realize that it might be fun for cosmopolitan hipsters to burble about the (at this stage, rather invisible) patriarchy, and more nonsense about “autonomy” and “freedom”, but perhaps you could have a more productive conversation if you would respond to what I actually said.

    Matthew Yglesias » Stark Contrast 2009

  • Sharon Mansur and duo Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig must be exciting and fun to work with because these choreographers burble with ideas and warmly embrace the notion of collaborating with their dancers.

    U-Md. faculty attempt to bring high-concept dance down to earth 2011

  • Over the burble of the stream, the whirring of insects, and the night calls of birds, we could hear the sounds of the Kristiano camp; clanking metal, chopping, and calls mixed with the mingled voices of several Kristianos who were singing, the melody eerie and foreign.

    Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011

  • Just a bit different from the fandom panel where the people up front get to burble about whatever they like, and the anarchic culture of fandom is if anything rather prejudiced against structured presentations.

    Elizabeth I and Ireland nwhyte 2009

  • The painful burble in my lungs spoke of something worse happening.

    Brush of Darkness Allison Pang 2011

Comments

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  • I believe first in:

    And, as in uffish thought he stood,

    The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

    Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

    And burbled as it came!

    But now has meaning:

    burble :

    The area of turbulence behind an object (wash, wake, or backwash) going through the air, whether a person in freefall or a canopy / airfoil in flight. -- http://www.combatmagazine.ws/S4/MILTERMS/PARATERM.HTM

    September 20, 2007

  • burble (plural burbles)

    1. A bubbling, gurgling sound, as of a creek.

    2. A gush of rapid speech.

    3. The turbulent boundary layer about a moving streamlined body.

    February 5, 2009

  • This word was used in the movie "Bedknobs And Broomsticks."

    June 12, 2012

  • Burble, a portmanteau of bubble and gurgle.

    January 1, 2021