MUMBLING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mumbling mean? 

• MUMBLING (noun)
  The noun MUMBLING has 2 senses:

1. indistinct enunciation

2. ineffectual chewing (as if without teeth)

  Familiarity information: MUMBLING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MUMBLING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Indistinct enunciation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("mumbling" is a kind of...):

diction; enunciation (the articulation of speech regarded from the point of view of its intelligibility to the audience)

Derivation:

mumble (talk indistinctly; usually in a low voice)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Ineffectual chewing (as if without teeth)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

gumming; mumbling

Hypernyms ("mumbling" is a kind of...):

chew; chewing; manduction; mastication (biting and grinding food in your mouth so it becomes soft enough to swallow)

Derivation:

mumble (grind with the gums; chew without teeth and with great difficulty)

 Context examples 

Still, you kept mumbling to yourself, where is the money?

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

She turned away, still mumbling blessings, and Alleyne saw her short figure and her long shadow stumbling slowly up the slope.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"That a boy should speak in council!" old Ugh-Gluk was mumbling.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He saw the blaze of the fire, Kloo-kooch cooking, and Grey Beaver squatting on his hams and mumbling a chunk of raw tallow.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I passed them each a plate of the fried meat, they ate greedily, making loud mouth-noises—champings of worn teeth and sucking intakes of the breath, accompanied by a continuous spluttering and mumbling.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I was half-dragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)