sabbeln
German, verb
sabbeln is spelled S-A-B-B-E-L-N (7 letters) and appears about once in every 17 million words in written German, the 232,034th most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Sabbeln is a German verb meaning “jabber, gab, rattle on, rabbit on (to talk a lot and quickly, or to talk nonsense)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a capital, Sabbeln is a different word: “gerund of sabbeln”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “Speichel aus dem Mund fließen lassen”.
What does sabbeln mean in English?
verb
- 1
jabber, gab, rattle on, rabbit on (to talk a lot and quickly, or to talk nonsense)
noun
- 1
neutergerund of sabbeln
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Speichel aus dem Mund fließen lassen 2. schnell reden
The definition in the German Wiktionary, in German.
Source: German Wiktionary, dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of sabbeln
- sabbelt present singular third-person
- sabbelte past
- gesabbelt participle past
- haben auxiliary
- sabbelnd participle present
- sabble first-person indicative present
- sabbele first-person indicative present
- sabbel first-person indicative present
- sabbelst indicative present second-person
- sabbelest second-person singular subjunctive
- sabblest second-person singular subjunctive
- sabbelet plural second-person subjunctive
- sabblet plural second-person subjunctive
- sabbelten first-person indicative plural
- sabbeltest indicative preterite second-person
- sabbeltet indicative plural preterite
- sabbel! imperative singular
- sabble! imperative singular
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is sabbeln in German?
sabbeln appears about once in every 17 million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).