drivel
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L319806 on Wikidata ↗verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L331548 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /dɹɪv.əl/ / /dɹəv.əl/
noun
Etymology: From Middle English drivel, probably from driven + -el, unless borrowed from an equivalent word in another West Germanic language. Compare Old Dutch drevel (“scullion”).
- A servant; a drudge.
“that foul aged drivel”
- A fool; an idiot.
“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”
verb
Etymology: Perhaps a blend of drive + dribble.
- To move or travel slowly.
“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.”
“There was a good deal of bustle and life at the inn; but three or four inebriates drivelling about the premises were 'suffering a recovery,' from the excitement of the previous night's entertainment.”
- To use up or to be used up.
“Instead of drivelling away the precious initiative season of life in the vain labour of teaching tuneable voices to sing[.]”
“It is for the country to say whether we are to keep on in this backward course, whether we are to go on getting deeper and deeper into debt, whether we are to have increased taxation year after year. The bone and sinew of the land is drivelling away.”