babbler
(ˈbæblə(r))
Also 6–8 babler.
[f. babble v. + -er1. Cf. babelard.]
1. A foolish or idle talker, chatterer, prater.
| 1530 Palsgr. 196/1 Babler, babillart. 1535 Coverdale Eccles. x. 11 A babler of his tonge. 1693 Evelyn De la Quint. Compl. Gard. I. 13, I do not like a great Babler, who talks of nothing but his Skill. 1781 Cowper Expost. 502 Babbler of ancient fables. 1860 Kingsley Misc. II. 162 Englishmen are no babblers; they are a dumb, dogged people. |
2. One who tells too freely what he knows; a prating gossip, a teller of secrets.
| 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Babillard, a babler..a tittle tattle. 1625 Bacon Ess. (1874) 19 For who will open himselfe to a Blab or a Babler? 1781 Cowper Friendship xvii, Aspersion is the babbler's trade, To listen is to lend him aid. 1822 Byron Werner v. i, We must have no third babblers thrust between us. |
3. A hound that gives tongue too freely.
| 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. Wks. 1732 I. 169 You shall often see among the Dogs a loud Babler, with a bad Nose, lead the unskilful. 1735 Somerville Chase iv. 66 The vain Babbler shun, Ever loquacious, ever in the wrong. |
4. Name given, on account of their harsh chattering note, to the Long-legged Thrushes.
| 1839 Penny Cycl. s.v. Merulidæ, Subfamily Crateropodinæ, Babblers. Legs remarkably long and strong, with the claws but slightly curved. 1873 Tristram Moab xiii. 250 The bulbul, the bush babbler, the Moabite sparrow. |
5. [Rhyming slang f. babbling brook (also used).] A (camp) cook; esp. one who cooks for shepherds, musterers, or shearers in isolated districts. Austral. and N.Z. slang.
Baker Austral. Lang. (1945) 79 says that it ‘was in Australian currency in 1906’.
| 1919 Bulletin (Sydney) 24 July 20/2 Two, and sometimes three, of these dishes (depends on the babbler's liver) are served each morning. 1919 Downing Digger Dial. 9 Babbling brook, babbler, an Army cook. Also babblins. 1928 Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Jan. 24/1, I am the man they call the babbler Sometimes known as the babbling brook. 1942 in Baker Austral. Lang. (1945) xvi. 284 It's also a fair cow when the babbling brook (cook) makes a crook (bad) stew. 1944 A. F. St. Bruno Desert Daze 33 Arch, the cook—oh, how that bold ‘babbler’ could curse. 1949 P. Newton High Country Days vi. 63 The ‘babbler’..was in his element. 1963 Weekly News (Auckland) 5 June 37/1 That got us started on the ‘babbling brooks’. I've got a few memories of station cooks. Ibid. 37/2 We worked it out that old babbler made 112,000 rock cakes during those four months. |