babbling
babbling noun: 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. Also the present participle and gerund of babble.
Noun
babbling (countable and uncountable, plural babblings)
Adjective
babbling (comparative more babbling, superlative most babbling)
- That babbles.
Also used as
babbling is also the present participle and gerund of babble.
Examples of babbling in a sentence
- The men were babbling, so we couldn't make sense of anything.
- Hounds are said to babble, or to be babbling, when they are too noisy after having found a good scent.
- The babbling stream, people spreading out rush mats to sit on, snacking on kimbap.
Forms of babbling
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | babblings |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more babbling |
| superlative | most babbling |
Origin of babbling
From Middle English bablyng, babelynge, equivalent to babble + -ing.
From Middle English bablyng, babelynge, babelinde, equivalent to babble + -ing.
Words formed from babbling
Phrases with babbling
Questions about babbling
- What does babbling mean?
- Babbling means 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.
- What part of speech is babbling?
- Babbling can be a noun or an adjective.
- What is the plural of babbling?
- The plural of babbling is babblings.
Words near babbling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: babbling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “babbling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/babbling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.