gobble

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɒbl̩/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑbl̩/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɒbəl

From Middle English gobben (“to drink or swallow greedily”), of uncertain origin +‎ -le (frequentative suffix). Middle English gobben is perhaps an alteration of Middle English globben (“to gulp down”), related to English gulpen (“to gulp”). However, compare also French gober.

gobble (third-person singular simple present gobbles, present participle gobbling, simple past and past participle gobbled)

1. To eat hastily or greedily; to scoff or scarf (often used with up)

   He gobbled four hot dogs in three minutes.

• (eat quickly or greedily): hork, scarf, scoff

• gobbler
• gobble off
• gobble up
• gobbly

gobble (plural gobbles)

1. (Scotland, slang, vulgar) Fellatio; a blowjob.
   • 2009, Mandasue Heller, The Charmer:

     Nowadays, he was lucky if his mam's auld drinking cronies gave him a gobble.

2. (rare) An act of eating hastily or greedily.
   • 1983, Liam O'Flaherty, The Assassin, page 53:

     […] wrinkling his forehead and moving his jaws and throat violently, as if he expected to choke with each gobble.

3. (golf) A rapid straight putt so strongly played that, if the ball had not gone into the hole, it would have gone a long way past.

Onomatopoetic of the sound of a turkey.

gobble (third-person singular simple present gobbles, present participle gobbling, simple past and past participle gobbled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) Of a turkey, to make its characteristic vocalisation; also, used of certain other birds.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 72:

     Not before this performance is over does he [a male capercaillie] settle down to play, and commence gobbling and snapping his beak.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To make the sound of a turkey.
   • 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature:

     He […] gobbles out a note of self-approbation.

gobble (plural gobbles)

1. The sound of a turkey; or, a similar vocalisation of another bird.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 86:

     But while the hen continued her cackle he finished his first play, and had commenced the gobble of his second, when a twig cracked beneath my feet.

• cluck
• gobbledegook