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rabble

verbnounnounverbattested in dialogue

  • //ˈɹæbəl//

To speak in a confused manner; talk incoherently; utter nonsense

verb

  1. 1

    To speak in a confused manner; talk incoherently; utter nonsense

  2. 2

    To speak confusedly or incoherently; gabble or chatter out

Etymology

First attested since 1300s, from Middle English rablen (“to ramble; rave; speak in a confused manner”), cognate with Middle Dutch rabbelen (“to talk; chatter; trifle”), Low German rabbeln, robbeln (“to chatter; prattle”).

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteA bewildered or meaningless string of words.

  2. 2

    obsoleteA pack of animals; or any confused collection of things.

  3. 3

    A mob; a disorderly crowd.

  4. 4

    The mass of common people; the lowest class of populace.

    Such practices as Theſe, too groſs to lye / Long unobſerv'd by each diſcerning Eye, / The more judicious Iſraelites Unſpell'd, / Though ſtill the Charm the giddy Rabble held, […]

Etymology

From Middle English rabel, probably from the verb (see above).

noun

  1. 1

    An iron bar used in puddling.

Etymology

From Old French roable (modern French râble), from Latin rutabulum (“a poker”).

verb

  1. 1

    To stir with a rabble.

Forms

plural
rabbles
past tense
rabbled
past participle
rabbled
present participle
rabbling
third person singular
rabbles
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).