Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Low indistinct words or utterance; mumbling speech.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Had they but known it, it might all have been seen, holy of holies, head-wagging priest, idle yawning assistant, with legs stretched out, half asleep, mumblement, jumblement and all, from a little back window in a passage opening from that Calvary gallery upstairs.

    The Bertrams Anthony Trollope 1848

  • From thence at least did these profane eyes look down and see all the mumblement and jumblement, which after all was little enough; but saw especially the idle clerical apprentice who, had that screen been down, and had he been called on to do his altar work before the public eye, would not have been so nearly asleep, as may perhaps be said of other clerical performers nearer home.

    The Bertrams Anthony Trollope 1848

  • Lasource answered with some vague painful mumblement, -- which, says Levasseur, one could not help tittering at.

    The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • This used to be a well-known fact; and daily still, in certain edifices, steeple-houses, joss-houses, temples sacred or other, everywhere spread over the world, we hear some dim mumblement of an assertion that such is still, what it was always and will forever be, the fact: but meseems it has terribly fallen out of memory nevertheless.

    Latter-Day Pamphlets Thomas Carlyle 1838

Comments

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  • mussitation.

    October 29, 2009

  • Ahhh... So there is a word for the noises my son's been making lately. Can't wait for the eyeball-rolling & mumblement that will take place when I lay this on him after school today! *snort*

    October 30, 2009

  • This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day.

    November 11, 2009

  • We always knew where tummy rumble went

    And knew well the familiar humble scent.

    So spoke, we believe

    Old Adam and Eve,

    The Ur-tongue of fundamental mumblement.

    April 12, 2014