GIBBER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gibber mean? 

• GIBBER (noun)
  The noun GIBBER has 1 sense:

1. unintelligible talking

  Familiarity information: GIBBER used as a noun is very rare.

• GIBBER (verb)
  The verb GIBBER has 2 senses:

1. speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly

2. chatter inarticulately; of monkeys

  Familiarity information: GIBBER used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GIBBER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unintelligible talking

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

gibber; gibberish

Hypernyms ("gibber" is a kind of...):

bunk; hokum; meaninglessness; nonsense; nonsensicality (a message that seems to convey no meaning)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gibber"):

abracadabra (gibberish and nonsense)

babble; babbling; lallation (gibberish resembling the sounds of a baby)

blather; blatherskite (foolish gibberish)

double Dutch (an incomprehensible talk)

double talk (deliberately unintelligible gibberish)

gabble; jabber; jabbering (rapid and indistinct speech)

mumbo jumbo (language or ritual causing, or intending to cause, confusion)

Derivation:

gibber (chatter inarticulately; of monkeys)

• GIBBER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they gibber    ... he / she / it gibbers   
Past simple: gibbered   
Past participle: gibbered   
-ing form: gibbering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

blab; blabber; chatter; clack; gabble; gibber; maunder; palaver; piffle; prate; prattle; tattle; tittle-tattle; twaddle

Hypernyms (to "gibber" is one way to...):

mouth; speak; talk; utter; verbalise; verbalize (express in speech)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "gibber"):

babble; blather; blether; blither; smatter (to talk foolishly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Chatter inarticulately; of monkeys

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "gibber" is one way to...):

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

gibber; gibberish (unintelligible talking)

 Context examples 

He was a man and a monstrosity, as fearful a thing of fear as ever gibbered in the visions of a maddened brain.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He ached with desire to express and could but gibber prosaically as everybody gibbered.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

George and Owen were singing snatches of songs and gibbering like two great apes.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The aërial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and gibbering, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to deck.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Men, intelligent men, and not the gibbering nonentities I found you consorting with in that trader's den.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"And it seems to me," Martin continued, "that knowledge of the land question, in turn, of all questions, for that matter, cannot be had without previous knowledge of the stuff and the constitution of life. How can we understand laws and institutions, religions and customs, without understanding, not merely the nature of the creatures that made them, but the nature of the stuff out of which the creatures are made? Is literature less human than the architecture and sculpture of Egypt? Is there one thing in the known universe that is not subject to the law of evolution? Oh, I know there is an elaborate evolution of the various arts laid down, but it seems to me to be too mechanical. The human himself is left out. The evolution of the tool, of the harp, of music and song and dance, are all beautifully elaborated; but how about the evolution of the human himself, the development of the basic and intrinsic parts that were in him before he made his first tool or gibbered his first chant? It is that which you do not consider, and which I call biology. It is biology in its largest aspects.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But no one stopped it, and he was glad, punching on wearily and endlessly with his one arm, battering away at a bloody something before him that was not a face but a horror, an oscillating, hideous, gibbering, nameless thing that persisted before his wavering vision and would not go away.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)