overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

gab.

Idle chatter.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɡæb/
  1. Idle chatter.

    countable · uncountable
  2. The mouth or gob.

    countable · uncountable
  3. One of the open-forked ends of rods controlling reversing in early steam engines.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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”).

verb/ɡæb/
  1. To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie.

    intransitive · obsolete
  2. To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects.

    intransitive
  3. To speak or tell falsely.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

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”).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

gab has 3 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

gab studiogab workshello, gab

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.