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nibble
[ nib-uhl ]
verb (used without object)
- to bite off small bits.
- to eat or chew in small bites:
Give him a graham cracker to nibble on.
- to bite, eat, or chew gently and in small amounts (usually followed by at ):
She was so upset she could only nibble at her food.
verb (used with object)
- to bite off small bits of (something).
- to eat (food) by biting off small pieces.
- to bite in small bits:
He nibbled each morsel with great deliberation.
noun
- a small morsel or bit:
Each nibble was eaten with the air of an epicure.
Synonyms: , , ,
- an act or instance of nibbling.
- a response by a fish to bait on a fishing line.
- any preliminary positive response or reaction.
nibble
/ ˈɪə /
verb
- (esp of animals, such as mice) to take small repeated bites (of)
- to take dainty or tentative bites
to nibble at a cake
- to bite (at) gently or caressingly
- intr to make petty criticisms
- intr to consider tentatively or cautiously
to nibble at an idea
noun
- a small mouthful
- an instance or the act of nibbling
- informal.plural small items of food, esp savouries, usually served with drinks
Other 51Թ Forms
- ܲ·Ծb adjective
51Թ History and Origins
51Թ History and Origins
Origin of nibble1
Idioms and Phrases
- nibble away at, to cause to decrease or diminish bit by bit: Also nibble at.
Inflation was nibbling away at her savings. The rains nibbled at the loam.
Example Sentences
Depending where you are, the partial eclipse looked as if the Moon was taking a nibble or a gigantic bite out of the Sun.
“My name is the only thing I have,” Jarrín said as he sipped on an Arnold Palmer and nibbled on complimentary bruschetta.
He currently is nibbling around the edge of judicial authority: testing it to see how stiff the opposition will be.
Meanwhile a two-month-old Alaotran gentle lemur has taken its first tentative jumps beyond the safety of its mother Hazo and father Rocky, making its first trips across an outdoor paddock to nibble on leafy greens.
Marks on her body also indicated that she was nibbled on by a great white shark after she died and might have been injured from a previous entanglement with fishing lines, he added.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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