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Jabber   Listen
noun
Jabber  n.  Rapid or incoherent talk, with indistinct utterance; gibberish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Jabber" Quotes from Famous Books



... instant noise and confusion on deck; the silence that had held the tongues of the crew was now no longer necessary, and the jabber, the oaths, the shouting, the loud, defiant laughs, the rumbling of the gun-carriages, the creaking of tackle-blocks, the thud of rammers and sponges, the calls for cartridges, all combined to create a hubbub ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... to perch on the roof of th' ark, and jabber over the drowning world; that was why. So, ever after that, when a magpie flies across, turn back, or look to ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... man, "My paceful squireen," sez I, "you shquot on your hunkers an' dimonstrate to my frind here, where your frinds are whin they're at home?" Wid that I introjuced him to the clanin'-rod, an' he comminst to jabber; the Interprut'r interprutin' in betweens, an' me helpin' the Intilligince Departmint wid my ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... it's important for all her inhabitants that she should be on the winning side.... Oh, she will be, no doubt, we've the advantage in numbers and wealth, if not in military organisation or talent.... If only the Potterites wouldn't jabber so. It's a unique opportunity for them, and they're taking it. What makes me angriest is the reasons they vamp up why we're fighting. For the sake of democracy, they say. Democracy be hanged. It's a rotten system, anyhow, and how this war is going to do anything for ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... a great likin' to childern," said he; "but I kindy liked little Clint; his cheeks was so soft, and smooth, and his eyes snapped sich funny fire; and he was olers so full o' his cunnin' jabber. I hope the painters haint ketched him. They yelled despotly last night; but I hope they haint ketched him yit. I'd like to see him agin, and baird his dimple face for him; the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... "There it is again! A Mingo talkin', a Seneca, I'd say—Hear that jabber! Delaware—Wyandot—Taway (Ottawa). With a blanket o' Shawnee pow-wow. By heavens, Morris! This is Cornstalk's whole force. They've learned that Dunmore is at the Hockhockin' an' will be j'inin' up ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... time for brooding. They have to pump ahead to save what remained of their capital stock. But Khalid, nevertheless, would brood and jabber. And what an inundation of ideas, and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... who fill the Zoo with their strange noises, early man liked to jabber. That is to say, he endlessly repeated the same unintelligible gibberish because it pleased him to hear the sound of his voice. In due time he learned that he could use this guttural noise to warn his fellow beings whenever ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... there, now, what a depth of stupidity lies behind his brown visage; what bucketsful of ignorance swell out his black pate, but he expresses it all in the single word 'Waugh!' because he's a philosopher. If he was like La Certe, he'd jabber away to us by the hour of things he knows nothin' about, and tell us long stories that are nothin' less than big lies. I'm glad you think me a philosopher, Little Bill, for it takes all the philosophy I've got to keep me up to the scratch of goin' about the world ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... to jabber to each other, in a low voice; but we could not, of course, make out what they said, and I don't think they were able to imagine what we intended to do. We were standing near the inner door of the great entrance-way, and into this they ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... they quite deafened me by their jabber. I tried signs, but before I could make them understand me I was seized with another shivering fit, and was carried below. The vessel held on her course, I have no doubt, but I was in no condition to know anything ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... up, Tony," said Magnus, lowering. "I'll look after my own affairs of the heart. Anyway, here's them two old hens what have been makin' me sick with their jabber and nonsense all these weeks. Ain't I goin' to have a chance to ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... better have tea on one of the ordinaries. "Pooh, volcanic!" says the leading tourist, and the ladies say how interesting. The island begins to rock, and so do the minds of its visitors. They start and quarrel and jabber. Fingers burst up through the sand-black fingers of sea devils. The island tilts. The tourists go mad. But just before the catastrophe one man, integer vitae scelerisque purus, sees the truth. Here are no devils. Other ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke, then—"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the main road to towns an' sich like—this is a bye, an' 'ere ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... accommodation nor the other, deposit their receptacles for the weary on the pavement in the street. The black domestics form a tertulia on the door-steps or squat together in dark unoccupied parts of the corridors. Their jabber is incessant and occasionally requires a gentle reminder. Sometimes one of their company essays a wild melody, accompanying his song on a primitive instrument ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... to be sworn to by half a dozen superfluous privates; there would be heat, reeking heat, till the wet pencil slipped sideways between the fingers; and the punkah would swish and the pleaders would jabber in the verandahs, and his Commanding Officer would put in certificates of the prisoner's moral character, while the jury would pant and the summer uniforms of the witnesses would smell of dye and soaps; and some abject barrack-sweeper would lose his head in cross-examination, and the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... and, in compensation, received a boy about seven or eight years old. The boy had traveled four months across the desert from Lake Chad. He knew nothing of his home country, had even forgotten his mother tongue, and could jabber only some fragments of speech picked up from the other slaves of the caravan. As a result of the long journey he was emaciated to a skeleton and so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand up. He crawled on all fours and kissed the hand of his new master, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... she made up because she used to say, when we first met, I was like a Spaniard; and I can jabber Spanish among other lingos. It's more her native tongue, you know, than English. I only refer to it because I want you to have a special name of your own for me, and I don't want it to be that one. It can't be Nelson, because—well, I can ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... administered to us alternately by means of a flat wooden spatula. This feeding process had not passed, it need hardly be said, unobserved; and by the time that our meal was concluded quite a large audience of women had gathered round to witness the performance. The animated jabber and hearty ringing laughter of several of the younger women and the somewhat abashed yet pleased expression of our own particular friend seemed to indicate that badinage was not altogether unknown, even in this obscure ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... for a year, the sky is a thousand times bluer, and what a cheery clatter of shrill quick French voices comes up from the court-yard under the windows! Bells are jangling; a family, mayhap, is going to Paris, en poste, and wondrous is the jabber of the courier, the postilion, the inn-waiters, and the lookers-on. The landlord calls out for "Quatre biftecks aux pommes pour le trente-trois,"—(O my countrymen, I love your tastes and your ways!)—the chambermaid ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... They talk like madmen, and drink like madmen. In drinking they use small phials, the contents of which they pour down their throats. When I first went amongst them I thought the whole nation was under a course of physic, but the terrible jabber of their tongues soon undeceived me. Drak was the first word I heard on entering Dacia, and the last when I left it. The Moldaves, if possible, drink more, and talk more than ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... things were of interest to him, and his knowledge, acquired with astonishing facility, formed the fund of talk which had singular charm alike for those who did and those who did not understand it. Undeniably shy, he yet, when warmed to a subject, spoke with nerve and confidence. In days of jabber, more or less impolite, this appearance of an articulate mortal, with soft manners and totally unaffected, could not but excite curiosity. Lady Teasdale, eager for the uncommon, chanced to observe him one evening as he conversed with his neighbour ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... to blunder in And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame— No, no, not that,—it's bad to think of war, When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts That drive them out to jabber ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... jabber of a barbarian woman upon the evolutions of a serpent!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "You were to capitulate, or to furnish reasons for your refusal. You have none. Give him your hand, girl, according to the compact. I praised you to him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... down;—and you cast about for new methods of reform. Democratic government, somehow, does nothing of what was expected of it; is not the panacea;—you see that, to bring the chaos of affairs into order, you must stop all this jabber and tinkering, and set up some undivided council,—some Man, for God's sake!—a Dictator who can keep his own and other people's mouths shut and hands busy, and get things done unimpeded. So you make one more grand reform for the sake of efficiency, and set up your Imperator, and have peace, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... fluttered that it will never recover; but flutter worse and worse, till it crack; and within year and day we hear of her in madhouse, and straitwaistcoat, which proves permanent!—Such brownlocked Figure did flutter, and inarticulately jabber and gesticulate, little able to speak the obscure meaning it had, through some segment of that Eighteenth Century of Time. She disappears here from the Revolution and Public History, for evermore. (Deux Amis, vii. 77-80; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... small fishing village, but now an important city—and made fast to our buoy. Instantly the ship was surrounded by sampans, and the occupants, not a few of whom were Chinese, swarmed aboard, eager to find buyers for the fruit, sake, and other articles which they had for sale. The jabber of tongues was incessant and deafening, and the importunities of the salesmen a trifle annoying; but Nakamura quickly sent them to the right-about, and inviting me to go up on the bridge with him—we were staying aboard to lunch with the ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... "Lay off that jabber, old bucks, the two of ye!" commanded Officer Rellihan, swinging across the room. "I'm here to kape th' place straight ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... occupations and lose a morning with little Fleda was a freshening of his better nature; it was like breathing pure air after the fever heat of a sick room; it was like hearing the birds sing after the meaningless jabber of Bedlam. Mr. Carleton indeed did not put the matter quite so strongly to himself. He called Fleda his good angel. He did not exactly know that the office this good angel performed was simply to hold a candle to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... fine an ear for their own native woodnotes as any signor or signora for an Italian air; that the boars of Westphalia gruntle as expressively through the nose as the inhabitants in High German; and that the frogs in the dykes of Holland croak as intelligibly as the natives jabber their Low Dutch. However this may be, we may consider those whose tongues hardly seem to be under the influence of reason, and do not keep up the proper conversation of human creatures, as imitating ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser

... skull is closely shaven all round. They all have skimpy white jackets and skirts from which their skinny little yellow legs stick out kicking in the effort to master their tasks. In a loud sing-song jabber they are repeating something which they read off the slates they hold in front of them. It would be funny to learn lessons lying flat on the floor, wouldn't it? But these boys have never sat on chairs in their lives; they will have to learn that as an accomplishment if they ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... had no credit to pledge for the season's stores. They had merely to pick up inert and unresisting beche-de-mer from among the coral five fathoms down, where the deceptive sea looked no more than ten feet deep under the squalid flatties; to smoke and jabber in idle moments; to eat and to sleep, and to listen to Mammerroo's version of the opening phrases of "The Last Rose of Summer" on a mouth-organ worn with inveterate usage to the bold brass. The tune was not quite beyond ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... the Athens of 400 B.C. The instrument is dumb. Ingenuity has been shown also in the invention of "talking-machines," like Faber's, based on the reed organ pipe. These automata can be made by dexterous manipulation to jabber a little, like a doll with its monotonous "ma-ma," or a cuckoo clock; but they lack even the sterile utility of the imitative art of ventriloquism. The real great invention lies in creating devices that shall be able to evoke from tinfoil, wax, or composition at any time to-day or in the future ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... I went with her pulling herbs in the fields and swamps, and with one word English and one of jabber, we knew each other's meaning, and I gave her the buckle of my belt which was broke and none here ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... talk of the aborigines. Some think it is the English word jabber, with the first letter pronounced as in German; but it is pronounced by the aborigines yabba, without a final r. Ya is an aboriginal stem, meaning to speak. In the Kabi dialect, yaman is to speak: in ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... was afraid of a fall and their backs would get broken. So when they were big enough they sat on the floor and she talked to them and told them funny things and acted 'em off and laughed, and they'd laugh too. It was like a play to see 'em. And they'd jabber back and she'd make b'lieve she understood it all. She was a wonderful child's nurse an' there'll be trouble enough without her. But the babies went to bed early an' then she'd come down an' wipe the dishes for ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... by me," he said. "I ain't jerry to all the Dago jabber yet, though I've copped off a little of it in the past two weeks. Put me wise ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... jabber, please; just stick to the writing," said the Terror. "I've got to make this letter a corker; and how can I ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... interests, have become a subject of general conversation. We would have it so; but we mark, with regret, that self has introduced itself here. The heartless loquacity—we must say heartless, for, in a matter of such deep interest, facility of speech bespeaks the feelings light—the unshrinking jabber with which people tell you their soul's history—their past impressions and present difficulties—their doctrines and their doubts—their manifestations and their experiences—not in the ear of confidence, to have those doubts removed and those doctrines verified; ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... seen the monkeys' cage in the beast-garden here. That is the world. It is not strength, or merit, or talent, or reason that is of any use there; it is just which monkey has the skill to squeeze to the front and jabber through the bars, and make his teeth meet in his neighbours' tails till they shriek and leave him free passage—it is that monkey which gets all the cakes and the nuts of the folk on a feast-day. The monkey is not bad; it is only ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... short by frankly saying that I had nothing to do with either the Boers or their laws. Many attempts were made during these visits to elicit the truth about the guns and cannon; and ignorant of the system of espionage which prevails, eager inquiries were made by them among those who could jabber a little Dutch. It is noticeable that the system of espionage is as well developed among the savage tribes as in Austria or Russia. It is a proof of barbarism. Every man in a tribe feels himself bound to tell the chief every ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... further entreated all the magistrates and men of authority in the land to wait on Mr. and Mrs. de Loutherbourg, to consult with them on the immediate erection of a large hospital, with a pool of Bethesda attached to it. All the magnetisers were scandalised at the preposterous jabber of this old woman, and De Loutherbourg appears to have left London to avoid her; continuing, however, in conjunction with his wife, the fantastic tricks which had turned the brain of this poor fanatic, and deluded many others who pretended to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... privileges are far greater than his, save that you have the Major as an appendage in place of a prefix.) The aforesaid Rali Bey was far the best specimen of a Turkish military doctor whom I ever met. As a rule, they are not an attractive set. Almost invariably Constantinopolitans, they jabber execrable French fluently enough, and affect European manners in a way which is truly disgusting: add to this a natural disregard of cleanliness, and an obtrusive familiarity, and nothing more is wanted to complete the picture. Of their ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... a pleased and confident jabber among the slingers and archers below as the birds arrived. The catapult was turned about toward us, and lashed tightly to stakes driven in front and behind. Then the birds were hitched to the cord of the immense bow, and they pulled it far back, ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... remaining a burden upon my mother, it may easily be imagined that I lost no time in signifying my desire to avail myself of his kindness; and, ere a couple of months had elapsed, I had plunged deeply into the mysteries of book-keeping, and could jabber French with tolerable fluency. I was still working away at "Double Entry," and other horrors of a like nature, when one morning I received a large business-like letter, in an unknown hand, the contents of which astonished me not a little, as well they might; for they proved to be of a ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... He was a Cuban. Father had picked him up at Havana, where he was looking out for somebody who could teach him English instead of the queer jabber that he learned, second-hand, from a wizened little French adventurer, who had set up as a teacher of languages, and had nearly forgotten even his own. I did get sold in the most ridiculous way over father's telegram that announced his coming! ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... "Little old Chippewa girls are good enough for Chuck. I ain't counting on taking up with those Frenchies. I don't like their jabber, from what I know of it. I saw some pictures of 'em, last week, a fellow in camp had who'd been over there. Their hair is all funny, and fixed up with combs and stuff, and they look ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... he told me; "you must not mind. The sentry has orders to keep everybody away from the palace, as people come in the afternoon and squat under my windows to jabber, and I cannot sleep. Those orders, I assure you, were not meant for you. You will be my guest all the time you are in the city, and I ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... coat on this hot day! Why? Because we might meet Mrs. Jabber. My dear, Mrs. Jabber is not a draught. But why should I wear a coat on a hot day because ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... very spiteful appearance. Other kinds, as the Inuus ecaudatus, apparently do not thus act. Again, other kinds—and this is a great anomaly in comparison with most other animals—retract their ears, show their teeth, and jabber, when they are pleased by being caressed. I observed this in two or three species of Macacus, and in the Cynopithecus niger. This expression, owing to our familiarity with dogs, would never be recognized as one of joy or pleasure ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... principal article of "chow-chow" for the crew. Everybody in China has a boy, and Charley had his; a regular young imp of a fellow of about his own age. Aling was his name; Charley used to call him Ting-a-ling, and would jabber horrible Chinese to him by the hour. Aling jumped down the steps, two at a time, with Charley's traveling bag; but Aho, more sedate and dignified, marched after him; Charley and I joined Akong in the front of the boat, and with ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... inquiring of stranger after stranger: "You know? You savvy him?" And time after time the curious yellow faces would bend over the picture, the inscrutable slant eyes would study the face, sometimes silently, sometimes with a disheartening jabber of heathen tongues. But not one trace of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... Mink came into camp, assisting the white hunter, several squaws began an excited jabber that brought out a ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... shiftless, lazy dogs, black as the ace of spades and twice as natural. But the little "nigs" kill me outright, they looking so much like a lot of monkeys, I know of nothing so comical. I could sit half the morning watching them and hearing them jabber. ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell

... people cannot laugh at you as well, you are very much mistaken. You are ugly. You are badly dressed. My Lord Haversham, I saw your mistress the other day; she is hideous—a duchess, but a monkey. Gentlemen who laugh, I repeat that I should like to hear you try to say four words running! Many men jabber; very few speak. You imagine you know something, because you have kept idle terms at Oxford or Cambridge, and because, before being peers of England on the benches of Westminster, you have been asses on the benches at Gonville and Caius. Here I am; and I choose to stare you in the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... proper, in his chuckly sorter style, With his thumb 'ooked orful hartful, and his chickaleary smile. "JIM," sez he, "wot price your jabber? Do yer think the blooming blokes Cares a cuss for me and you, JIM, any more than ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various

... and the erect white gentleman, before his desk in his elbow-chair, when, after his breakfast, about to open the letters and the books relating to this part of his charge, used sometimes to grin over his work, and jabber to himself his hard scoffs and gibes over the sins and follies of man, and the chops and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... in visible astonishment. They drew together and talked it over, flew down close to the Clubhouse, flew about it in circles, examined it on every side, made even one perilous trip across the roof, the tips of their feet tapping it in vicious little dabs. But flutter as they would, jabber as they would, the Clubhouse preserved a tomb-like silence. After a while they banged on the shutters and knocked against the door; but not a sound or movement ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... over the level field in the dusk. A quarter of a mile away the light glimmered in the hut of his Chinese help, and there came the good-natured jabber of their supper activities. He felt the expansive thrill of the planter, the employer—the man who organizes an ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... the broken balustrade, could hear the guttural jabber of their beast-talk, the clicking play of their fangs; could see the craning necks, the talons that held spears, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... He's the best-looking man in the bunch. He's so tall and straight, too, and so—so bishop-y in the set of his clothes. They fit him. But he doesn't jabber as much as the rest. I s'pose 'twould be just like the things that happen to me to find out that that giant bean-pole which keeps teetering around the room is the bishop." She indicated a very tall, very slender man, who at that moment chanced ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... would have suffered from exposure to cold. I however regretted this but little. The white bear was shaking his shaggy coat, the wolf pacing uneasily up and down his den, birds pluming their feathers in the dull red light, while the monkeys' ceaseless jabber sounded from the walls of ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... lesson at one bout, as he used to do at the beginning. The best way to get him on is for me to sing him one of my French songs. That seems to excite him, or to rouse him to rivalry. Then he will put his head on one side, listen critically for a while, smile a superior smile, and finally begin—jabber, jabber, jabber—trying to talk me down, as if I ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... we have wronged him," said Blake. "The best way is not to talk too much to him. We might let something slip out without knowing it. Let him jabber as much as he likes. We'll ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but he was furious with rage and sorrow, for, wolflike, the wolves had never told him how they hated him. "Listen you!" he cried. "There is no need for this dog's jabber. Ye have told me so often tonight that I am a man (and indeed I would have been a wolf with you to my life's end) that I feel your words are true. So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but sag [dogs], as a man should. What ye will do, and what ye will not do, is not yours to say. That ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... most wonderful thing. An American or an Englishman, or any one speaking English, could take with him a translatophone and travel around the world, understanding the language of every nation, of every people—the polished tongues of civilization, the speech of the scholars of the Orient, and even the jabber of the wild savages of Africa. To be sure, he could not expect to answer those who spoke to him, but what of that? He would not wish to speak; he would merely desire to hear. All he would have to do would ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... expect us to return all together almost immediately. By this time, thanks to Yamba's able and intelligent lessons, I was able to speak the queer language of the blacks with some show of fluency, and I could understand them well enough when they did not jabber ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... discuss how many dustmen are needed, and how chimneys shall be constructed in the town in which I don't live—to serve on a jury and try a peasant who's stolen a flitch of bacon, and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the counsel for the defense and the prosecution, and the president cross-examining my old half-witted Alioshka, 'Do you admit, prisoner in the dock, the fact of the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... of the scenery, in somewhat gushing phrases. The woman paid no attention to him. Provoked by her irresponsiveness, he said, "You don't seem to care for this magnificent scenery?" She took the pipe from her mouth and delivered this settler: "I enjies it; I don't jabber." ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... of our minister, Joshua Hopewell (he was the most larned man of the age, for he taught himself e'enamost every language in Europe); well, next spring, when I went to Boston, I met a Frenchman, and I began to jabber away French to him: 'Polly woes a french say,' says I. 'I don't understand Yankee yet,' says he. 'You don't understand!' says I, 'why it's French. I guess you didn't expect to hear such good French, did ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... paint a few show-pictures. But I know very little about it, for I haven't much taste that way. Father has us educated according to our tastes; that is, if we show a little talent for any one thing, he has us try to perfect ourselves in that one thing. Julia is the linguist, and can jabber French and German like natives. Father also insisted on our being taught the common English branches very thoroughly, and he says he could get us situations to teach within a month, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... smile of satisfaction addressed to me, he turned to the woman. And no sooner had he turned to her, than his whole face altered. He said, in a peculiar, scornful, hasty tone, such as is employed towards dogs: "What do you jabber in that careless way for? 'I sit in the taverns.' You do sit in the taverns, and that means, to talk business, that you are a prostitute," and again he uttered the word. "She does not know the name for herself." This tone offended me. "It is not ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... of the Spanish and the Sclavonic. Some jabber a little French. The men are generally athletic, very dark complexioned and have strong, energetic features, wavy hair and sonorous voices. The women, when young, are remarkably beautiful; but like all who lead an exposed and migratory life, they become hideous ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... observations which Addison made in Italy tended to confirm him in the political opinions which he had adopted at home. To the last he always spoke of foreign travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In his Freeholder, the Tory fox-hunter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach a man to jabber French, and to talk against ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... one were to squeeze their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that we are making for the abyss. That is what the descamisados have brought us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery! To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the National Guard! And with whom are they to meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but returned ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... They've grown too fly. You've got only to pass a remark on his sail-cloth coat to make him shut up. All the town knows it. But he's got you to listen to his crazy talk whenever he chooses. Don't I hear you two at it, jabber, jabber, mumble, mumble——— ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad

... elderly woman seemed to be astonished at such a name, but the Lambertini gave no explanation. Nevertheless, people seemed to think it rather curious that a man who did not know a word of French should be living in Paris, and that in spite of his ignorance he continued to jabber away in an easy manner, though nobody could understand what ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Minty, lifting her black eyes to her father's; "I ain't no account, and you ain't no account either. You ain't got no college education, ain't got no friends in 'Frisco, and ain't got no high-toned style; I can't play the pianner, jabber French, nor get French dresses. We ain't got no fancy 'Shallet,' as they call it, with a first-class view of nothing; but only a shanty on dry rock. But, afore I'D take advantage of a lazy, gawky boy—for it ain't anything else, though he's good meanin' ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... as dat, nohow. When dat cussed mule—I tell you fair, Massa Tom, dis chile conclude dat riding not such a berry easy ting after all—when dat cussed mule ran into French camp, de soldiers dey catch him, and dey take Sam off, and den dey jabber and laugh for all de world like great lots of monkeys. Well, for some time Sam he didn't say nothing, all de wind shook out of his body. Besides which he couldn't understand what dey say. Den all of a sudden, to Sam's surprise, up came a colored soldier, and he speak to Sam in de ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... short dresses and high bodies or shirts, and their cheeks, noses, and foreheads thickly covered with red paint. Both parties soon set up a lively jabber in Sioux; but General Parker gave a sign, and all were as whist ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... course. I don't care to talk to everybody, MYSELF. If a person starts in to jabber-jabber-jabber about scenery, and history, and pictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mighty soon. I say 'Well, I must be going now—hope I'll see you again'—and then I take a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... company of us, Mr. and Mrs. Sargent and their gifted daughter Ella, also the professor of Greek in your Kansas State University, Miss Kate Stephens. She interpreted the utterances of the ever-present guides, whose jabber ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... give a glance at the Van der Werf's papers, though Captain Cornelisz was ready for him with the wrong set. "I guess," says he, "you'll spare yourself the trouble to pretend you ain't a Dutchman"; and when the skipper flung his arms about and began to jabber like a play-actor, 'twas "All right, Mynheer; we'll talk about that at Falmouth. Look here, boys," he sings out to his boarding party, "we've something here too good to be let out of sight. My idea is to reach back for Polperro in company, and let Mr. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... grin, and jabber, and grin, like a pesky set o' natural born monkeys, that's ten times better nor you is any day of your good for nothing, sneaking lives. Goodness, gracious, marsy on me alive!" continued the dame, whom the reader has doubtless recognized as Mrs. Younker; "I only jest wish you had to change ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... "He!" and "Hi!" respectively, in varying tones according to their varied character. Then they commenced a jabber, which we are quite unable to translate, and turned Tom over on his back. The motion awoke him, for he sat up ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... an' e' goes wallop down the 'ole length of the companion, from top to bottom, an' busts three of 'is ribs. Of course we all ran an' picked 'im up, an' said we 'oped 'e wasn't much 'urt. But 'e says, "None of yer jabber, ye swines; 'elp me inter my bunk, and two of yer bring me a 'ot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various

... himself dangling uncomfortably on the porch railing close beside the chair of a shadowy girl who was buried in its depths. He could look down into the place where he imagined her face might be. He was quite close to her and in the jabber of voices she was silent. No one seemed to pay him the slightest attention, and his interest mounted in a growing intimacy of silence with this girl in the chair. A door opened and he saw Myrtle's figure pass across ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... naturally frank and truthful, with some liking for me (for she looked forward to our voluptuous dallyings), she gave me for a long time much amusement, and I heard the incidents of her short life. She would jabber like a magpie about them when she knew me well, which she soon did, and began to look to me regularly for her ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... warning me that a troop of monkeys was coming. I could not hear the faintest rustle, but sure enough in a minute or two a troop of over twenty monkeys came hopping and shambling along, stopping every now and then to sit on their hams, look back, grin, jabber, and show their formidable teeth, until Mehrman rose up, waved his cloth at them, and turned them off from the direction of the nets toward the bank ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... snorting and terrified, there rang out on the still night air the most awful shriek I ever heard, the wail of a woman in horror and dismay. Then dull, heavy blows; oaths, curses, stifled exclamations; a fall that shook the windows; Gleason's voice commanding, entreating; a shrill Chinese jabber; a rush through the hall; more blows; gasps; curses; more unavailing orders in Gleason's well-known voice; then a sudden pistol shot, a scream of "Oh, my God!" then moans, and then silence. The ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... so interested in what you were saying that I lost the thread of my story. We were listening to an excited jabber of nonsense in the hotel—for instance, one of the negro servants said you went away of your own free will—and wondering what on earth we could do, when this genii of an Arab came to me in a mysterious way, and led me straight on your track. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... thoughtfully pressed me to sit down, while the children pranced about to let off the steam of their enjoyment. After a few minutes he invariably joined me, and led the conversation to the same topic. Above the roar of the lions, above the jabber of the monkeys, he shouted in my ears to know if I were still obdurate. Wouldn't I help him? Why wouldn't I help him? If I really loved Evelyn, and cared for her welfare, how could I stand aside? I must see—surely I must see that she belonged to the essentially feminine type of women who ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... sentences, often slangy, and occasionally ungrammatical, seemed most in favour with the Manor 'house-party,'—and for a time splinters of language flew about like the chips from dry timber under a woodman's axe, without shape, or use, or meaning. It was a mere confused and senseless jabber—a jabber in which Maryllia took no part. She sat very quietly looking from one face to the other at table with a critical interest. These were the people she had met every day more or less in London,—some ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... did jabber away, and ask us all sorts of questions, none of which we could answer, from not being able to muster a word of French amongst us. The other boats came up, and then there was still more jabbering; and then the Frenchmen made us all get into one boat, and pulled with us towards a ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... JABBER. To talk thick and fast, as great praters usually do, to chatter like a magpye; also to speak a foreign language. He jabbered to rne in his damned outlandish parlez vous, but I could not understand him; he chattered to me in French, or some other foreign ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.



Words linked to "Jabber" :   rabbit on, jabbering, verbalise, mouth, rave, talk, verbalize, utter, rant, gibberish, speak, gibber



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