Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Mumble \Mum"ble\, v. t.
1. To utter with a low, inarticulate voice. --Bp. Hall.
2. To chew or bite gently, as one without teeth.
Gums unarmed, to mumble meat in vain. --Dryden.
3. To suppress, or utter imperfectly.
Mumble \Mum"ble\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Mumbled}; p. pr. & vb. n.
{Mumbling}.] [OE. momelen; cf. D. mompelen, mommelen, G.
mummelen, Sw. mumla, Dan. mumle. Cf. {Mum}, a., {Mumm},
{Mump}, v.]
1. To speak with the lips partly closed, so as to render the
sounds inarticulate and imperfect; to utter words in a
grumbling indistinct manner, indicating discontent or
displeasure; to mutter.
Peace, you mumbling fool. --Shak.
A wrinkled hag, with age grown double, Picking dry
sticks, and mumbling to herself. --Otway.
2. To chew something gently with closed lips.
Source : WordNet®
mumble
v 1: talk indistinctly; usually in a low voice [syn: {mutter}, {maunder},
{mussitate}]
2: grind with the gums; chew without teeth and with great
difficulty; "the old man had no teeth left and mumbled his
food" [syn: {gum}]
Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing
mumble
1. Said when the correct response is too complicated to
enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out. Often
prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance to
get into a long discussion. "Don't you think that we could
improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count
transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and
there are some extra cache bits for the {microcode} to use?"
"Well, mumble ... I'll have to think about it."
2. Yet another {metasyntactic variable}, like {foo}.
3. Sometimes used in "public" contexts on-line as a
placefiller for things one is barred from giving details
about. For example, a poster with pre-released hardware in
his machine might say "Yup, my machine now has an extra 16M of
memory, thanks to the card I'm testing for Mumbleco."
4. A conversational wild card used to designate something one
doesn't want to bother spelling out, but which can be
{glark}ed from context. Compare {blurgle}.
5. [XEROX PARC] A colloquialism used to suggest that further
discussion would be fruitless.
(1997-03-27)