drabble
/ˈdɹæbəl/
drabble verb: to wet or dirty, especially by dragging through mud.
Verb
drabble (third-person singular simple present drabbles, present participle drabbling, simple past and past participle drabbled)
- To wet or dirty, especially by dragging through mud.
- That which eſpecialleſt nouriſht the moſt prime pleaſure in me, was after a ſtorme when they were driuen inſwarmes, and lay close peſtred together as thicke as they could packe; the next day following, if it were faire, they would cloud the whole skie with canuas, by ſpreading their drabled ſailes...1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, pages 5–6
- To fish with a long line and rod.
- to drabble for barbels
Noun
drabble (plural drabbles)
- A short fictional story, typically in fan fiction, sometimes exactly 100 words long.
- Synonyms:
- flash fiction, flashfic, microfiction, short short story, spamfic, sudden fiction
Proper noun capitalized: Drabble
Drabble (plural Drabbles)
- A surname from Old English.
drabble meaning in Tamil and Urdu
drabble in Tamil
- நீரில் துளைந்து செல், நீர்தெறிக்கும்படி போ
drabble in Urdu
- بھگونا, لتھیڑنا
Synonyms of drabble
Forms of drabble
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | drabbles |
| present participle | drabbling |
| past participle | drabbled |
| past | drabbled |
| Noun | |
| plural | drabbles |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Drabbles |
Origin of drabble
Inherited from Middle English drabelan.
From a game in Monty Python's Big Red Book in which the first player to write a novel wins; possibly derived in turn from the surname of the author Margaret Drabble.
Perhaps a diminutive of the Old English personal name Drabba, or related to drab, hence a nickname for an untidy person.
Words formed from drabble
Words that rhyme with drabble
Questions about drabble
- What does drabble mean?
- Drabble means to wet or dirty, especially by dragging through mud.
- What is drabble in Tamil?
- Drabble in Tamil is நீரில் துளைந்து செல், நீர்தெறிக்கும்படி போ. See Drabble meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is drabble?
- Drabble can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce drabble?
- Drabble is pronounced /ˈdɹæbəl/.
- What is the past tense of drabble?
- The past tense of drabble is drabbled.
Words near drabble in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drabble (page history and authors); Drabble (page history and authors); drabble (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); drabble (Urdu Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-drabble.wav.
Cite this entry: “drabble.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drabble. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.