Word.ws English Dictionary

drabbling

drabbling is the present participle and gerund of drabble.

Meaning of drabble

Verb

drabble (third-person singular simple present drabbles, present participle drabbling, simple past and past participle drabbled)

  1. (transitive) 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
  2. (intransitive) To fish with a long line and rod.
    • to drabble for barbels

See all 4 meanings of drabble

Questions about drabbling

What is drabbling the present participle and gerund of?
Drabbling is the present participle and gerund of drabble.

Words near drabbling in the dictionary

  1. drabbler
  2. drabblers
  3. drabbles
  4. drabbletail
  5. drabbletails
  6. drabbling
  7. drabby
  8. drabcloth
  9. Drabek
  10. Drabeks
  11. drabette

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drabbling (page history and authors); drabble (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.

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Cite this entry: “drabbling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drabbling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.