slabber

See also: Slabber

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈslæbə(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -æbə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

From Middle English slaberen, from Middle Dutch slabberen (“to lap, sup, slaver, slabber”), from Old Dutch *slabron, from Proto-West Germanic *slabrōn, from Proto-Germanic *slabrōną (“to scrawl, make a mess”), ultimately imitative. Cognate with Low German slabbern (“to slabber”), German schlabbern (“to slabber”), Icelandic slafra (“to slaver”). More at slaver.

Alternative forms

• slobber, slubber

Verb

slabber (third-person singular simple present slabbers, present participle slabbering, simple past and past participle slabbered)

1. (intransitive) To let saliva or other liquid fall from the mouth carelessly; drivel; slaver.
2. (transitive) To eat hastily or in a slovenly manner, as liquid food.
3. (transitive) To wet and befoul by liquids falling carelessly from the mouth; slaver; slobber.
   • 1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “Of Some Quarrels that Happen’d after Peg was Taken into the Family”, in John Bull Still in His Senses: Being the Third Part of Law is a Bottomless-Pit. […], London: […] John Morphew, […], →OCLC, page 23:

     At the ſame time he clap'd me on the Back, and ſlabber'd me all over from Cheek to Cheek, vvith his great Tongue.

4. (transitive) To cover, as with a liquid spill; soil; befoul.
   • 1878, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC; republished as W[illiam] Payne, Sidney J[ohn Hervon] Herrtage, editors, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], 1878, →OCLC:

     The milk pan and cream pot so slabbered and tost / That butter is wanting and cheese is half lost.

Noun

slabber (countable and uncountable, plural slabbers)

1. Moisture falling from the mouth; slaver.

Etymology 2

From slab +‎ -er.

Noun

slabber (plural slabbers)

1. A saw for cutting slabs from logs.
2. A slabbing machine.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “slabber”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Bablers, barbels, barbles, rabbles