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Drivel
Definitions
- 1 Nonsense; senseless talk. countable, uncountable
"“You pay too much attention to such insipid drivel in even mentioning it.”"
- 2 A servant; a drudge. obsolete
"that foul aged drivel"
- 3 saliva spilling from the mouth wordnet
- 4 Saliva, drool. countable, rare, uncountable
"He pauses as I wipe the drivel from his chin."
- 5 A fool; an idiot. obsolete
"if thou didst know what a life I lead with that drivel, it would make thee even of pity receive me into thy only comfort"
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- 6 a worthless message wordnet
- 1 To talk nonsense; to talk senselessly; to drool.
- 2 To move or travel slowly. obsolete
"But that is a state of things, which must in time work its own cure. We cannot always go dribbling and drivelling along, government and people alike being the scoff of all onlookers."
- 3 let saliva drivel from the mouth wordnet
- 4 To have saliva drip from the mouth. archaic, intransitive
- 5 To use up or to be used up. obsolete
"Instead of drivelling away the precious initiative season of life in the vain labour of teaching tuneable voices to sing[.]"
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- 6 To be weak or foolish; to dote.
"This drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole."
Etymology
From Middle English dravel, dribil, a deverbal from drevelen, drivelen (Etymology 2).
From Middle English drevelen, drivelen, from Old English dreflian (“to drivel, slobber, slaver”), from Proto-Germanic *drablijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerebʰ- (“cloudy, turbid; yeast”).
From Middle English drivel, probably from driven + -el, unless borrowed from an equivalent word in another West Germanic language. Compare Old Dutch drevel (“scullion”).
Perhaps a blend of drive + dribble.
See also for "drivel"
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