balbucear
Spanish, verb/balbuθeˈaɾ/
balbucear is spelled B-A-L-B-U-C-E-A-R (9 letters) and appears about once in every 5 million words in written Spanish, the 81,768th most frequent Spanish word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Balbucear is a Spanish verb meaning “to stutter, to stammer” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) defines it as “Hablar o leer con pronunciación dificultosa, tarda y vacilante, trastrocando a veces las letras o las sílabas”.
What does balbucear mean in English?
verb
- 1
to stutter, to stammer
- 2
to prattle, to babble
- 3
to lisp
Source: English Wiktionary, Spanish section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How Spanish dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Hablar o leer con pronunciación dificultosa, tarda y vacilante, trastrocando a veces las letras o las sílabas.
The definition in the Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario), in Spanish.
Source: Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of balbucear
- balbuceo first-person present singular
- balbuceé first-person preterite singular
- balbuceado participle past
- balbuceando gerund
- balbuceada feminine participle past
- balbuceados masculine participle past
- balbuceadas feminine participle past
- balbuceas indicative informal present
- balbuceás indicative informal present
- balbucea indicative present singular
- balbuceamos first-person indicative plural
- balbuceáis indicative plural present
- balbucean indicative plural present
- balbuceaba first-person imperfect indicative
- balbuceabas imperfect indicative second-person
- balbuceábamos first-person imperfect indicative
- balbuceabais imperfect indicative plural
- balbuceaban imperfect indicative plural
Source: English Wiktionary and Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce balbucear?
- /balbuθeˈaɾ/
- [bal.β̞u.θeˈaɾ]
- /balbuseˈaɾ/
Sources: English Wiktionary, Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to balbucear
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is balbucear in Spanish?
balbucear appears about once in every 5 million words in written Spanish.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).