Gobble

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Dr. Goodword
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Gobble

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:26 pm

• gobble •


Pronunciation: gah-bêl • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. (Transitive) To eat very fast, voraciously, as to gobble up her food. 2. (Intransitive) To make the sound of the male turkey.

Notes: Welcome to alphaDictionary's Thanksgiving Day Sale: two Good Words for the price of one! The turkey, that Thanksgiving staple of carnivores, only accidentally makes a sound resembling the word meaning "to devour", to gobble (up, down). Both words have only native English forms: gobbling refers to either activity and a gobbler is a person who eats too fast or the bird most likely to be gobbled up in the US today.

Image

In Play: We held this word back to the season when gobbler-gobblers gobble (recently) gobbling gobblers: "Don't gobble that gobbler, Junior, it might accelerate your growth." (I suspect that these are more examples than anyone needs, so let's move on to the history of gobble.)

Word History: Gobble is based on Middle English gobben "to drink greedily", from gobbe "lump, mouthful" (gob today). Middle English picked up the word from Old French gobe "mouthful", which also went into the making of goblet. It also turned up in another Good Word gobemouche. The turkey's gobble took its name, of course, directly from the sound that the turkey makes (onomatopoeia). Gobbledygook is a contribution of Representative Maury Maverick (1895-1954), whose grandfather gave us the word maverick. Rep. Maverick based the word gobbledygook on the behavior of turkeys back in Texas. According to him, they were "…always gobbledy-gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity. At the end of this gobble there was a sort of 'gook'."
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Re: Gobble

Postby Slava » Sat Nov 13, 2021 9:29 am

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us once again here in the US, so I thought I'd put up a reply to this 12-year old unanswered post. Not much to say, though, at least not linguistically, so I'll just say I hope everyone is enjoying the season, whatever part of the world you happen to be in at the moment.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

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Re: Gobble

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Nov 13, 2021 9:06 pm

It hasn't been up for Thanksgiving for two years, so it will be coming up again this year. I repeat the best of the seasonal words every year for the holidays.
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Re: Gobble

Postby Philip Hudson » Sun Nov 21, 2021 8:45 pm

Have a blessed Thanksgiving, folks. And thanks for mentioning old Maury Maverick. I am sort of a maverick myself. The Dallas Mavericks think a maverick is a horse. Let some people loose and there is no telling what they will do. A maverick, in its literal sense, is an unbranded young bovine. In its figurative sense it is someone who doesn't much care what anybody else thinks about him. A dogie is a motherless calf. It bids fair to be turned into the property of old Mr. Maverick who was wont to say that all unbranded calves belong to him. With a running iron [Google it] a rogue cowboy can turn almost any cow, branded or not, into one of his own.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

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Re: Gobble

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:20 pm

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American subscribers, vaccinated or to-be-vaccinated!
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Re: Gobble

Postby Philip Hudson » Thu Nov 25, 2021 3:20 am

Thanksgiving is for giving thanks. If one doesn't believe in God, who does he/she have to thank? I leave that up to the reader. I am thankful for the many contributors to this forum. Some of you are like old [long term] friends. Others, I don't know much about. I am thankful for Dr. Goodword who has guided us along the way. I anticipate continued enjoyment from this forum. == PWH
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.


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