Library / English Dictionary

GURGLE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The bubbling sound of water flowing from a bottle with a narrow neck

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("gurgle" is a kind of...):

sound (the sudden occurrence of an audible event)

Derivation:

gurgle (make sounds similar to gurgling water)

gurgle (flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Utter with a gurgling sound

Example:

'Help,' the stabbing victim gurgled

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "gurgle" is one way to...):

emit; let loose; let out; utter (express audibly; utter sounds (not necessarily words))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Drink from a flask with a gurgling sound

Synonyms:

guggle; gurgle

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Hypernyms (to "gurgle" is one way to...):

drink; imbibe (take in liquids)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Make sounds similar to gurgling water

Example:

The baby gurgled with satisfaction when the mother tickled it

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Hypernyms (to "gurgle" is one way to...):

go; sound (make a certain noise or sound)

Verb group:

babble; bubble; burble; guggle; gurgle; ripple (flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Derivation:

gurgle (the bubbling sound of water flowing from a bottle with a narrow neck)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise

Example:

babbling brooks

Synonyms:

babble; bubble; burble; guggle; gurgle; ripple

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Hypernyms (to "gurgle" is one way to...):

go; sound (make a certain noise or sound)

Verb group:

gurgle (make sounds similar to gurgling water)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

gurgle (the bubbling sound of water flowing from a bottle with a narrow neck)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Harkey was in the air, in his spring to his feet, at the second shot, and he pitched face down upon the floor, his "My God!" gurgling and dying in his throat.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Where the bow cut the water there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

In the other hand he held a bottle, which, from time to time, was inverted above his head to the accompaniment of gurgling noises.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

What attracted Challenger, on the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon the surface.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over—as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He gasped, he gurgled, his face grew purple in his attempts to get his breath, while with his long left arm extended and his right thrown across, he tried to screen himself from the attack of his wiry antagonist.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, with proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage, a sweet mountain- meadow, a grove of redwoods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one long row of blackberries and two short rows of strawberries, to say nothing of a quarter of a mile of gurgling brook.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I noted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen’s swift rush from sublime exultation to despair slowly left me.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

From below, as from out an abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubbling through water.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped banks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered good camping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool, where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of English trout, gave us a delicious supper.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)