Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *gabbōnąder.
Old Norse gabbder.
Middle English gab
English gab
Inherited from Middle English gab, gabbe, from Old Norse gabb (“jest, mockery”) (whence also Old French gab, gap (“mockery, derision, scorn”)). Cognate with Icelandic gabb (“hoax”).
Meanings
(countable, uncountable) Idle chatter.
Ah, find some chirk in ye, lad. Now is the time for gab and chatter. Y’best be enjoying it. Come a fortnight and the brace of us’ll be wantin’ to be ever silent as the tomb. Even to clap eyes on each other... It’ll make y’hotter than hell! 2019, Robert Eggers, Max Eggers, The Lighthouse (motion picture), spoken by Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe), set in Maine, United States, during the 1890s with dialogue written to reflect the time period:
(countable, uncountable) The mouth or gob.
(countable, uncountable) One of the open-forked ends of rods controlling reversing in early steam engines.
Loose eccentric reversing gear gave way about 1836 to the early forms of gab motion. [...] In 1840 Stephenson evolved a motion in which the gabs were connected directly to the valve spindle. 1940 July, S. Richards, “Locomotive Valve gear Development”, in Railway Magazine, page 412:
Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *gabbōną
Proto-West Germanic *gabbōn
Old English gabbander.
Middle English gabbender.
English gab
From Middle English gabben, from Old English gabban (“to scoff, mock, delude, jest”) and Old Norse gabba (“to mock, make sport of”); both from Proto-Germanic *gabbōną (“to mock, jest”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to be split, be forked, gape”).
Cognate with Scots gab (“to mock, prate”), North Frisian gabben (“to jest, sport”), Middle Dutch gabben (“to mock”), Middle Low German gabben (“to jest, have fun”).
Meanings
(intransitive, obsolete) To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie.
He would chant his own doughty deeds, and “gab,” as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades” 1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 12, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 181:
(intransitive) To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects.
"That Mrs. Mender gives a bloke the ear-ache; thinks a bloke's got all day to waste listening to her gab." 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 26:
fr bavarder (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · bg бърборя (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · fi pälpättää (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · ka ლაყბობა (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · de quasseln (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · ru болта́ть (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · fi pulista (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · ka ყბედობა (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · fr papoter (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · nl kletsen (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · ru трепа́ться (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · de schwatzen (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · as বকা (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · fr babiller (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects) · ga bí ag cabaireacht (to talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects)