Meaning

6 senses

  1. An act of taking a small, quick bite, or several of such bites, especially with the front teeth; the bite or bites so taken.

  2. A light bite of a person or animal, or part of their body, especially one which is loving or playful; a nip.

  3. An amount of food that is or can be taken into the mouth through a small bite; a small mouthful.

  4. (figuratively)A slight show of interest in something, such as a commercial opportunity or a proposal.

  5. A unit of memory equal to half a byte, or chiefly four bits.

    Nibble

    полуба́йтpolubájt, тетра́даtetráda, нибблnibbl

    напівба́йтnapivbájt, тетра́даtetráda, нібблnibbl

  6. (obsolete, rare)Grass or other vegetation eaten by livestock; forage, pasturage.

More definitions
  • gentle biting
  • a small byte

Examples

34 sentences

  1. Tom is nibbling on a carrot stick.

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  2. The lambs nibble grass all day.

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  3. Gabor was nibbling on some doritos.

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  4. She was nibbling the rubber toys.

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  5. I always nibble on cheese and crackers.

    Amastan · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · C2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

Translations

8 languages
Українська
By meaning 1
unit of memory equal to half a byte, or chiefly four bits:
Русский
By meaning 1
unit of memory equal to half a byte, or chiefly four bits:
Deutsch
By meaning 1
unit of memory equal to half a byte, or chiefly four bits:

Origin

The verb is derived from Late Middle English nebillen, nebyll (“to peck away at (something

The verb is derived from Late Middle English nebillen, nebyll (“to peck away at (something), nibble; (figurative) to attempt to sing (a part of a song)”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Middle Low German nibbelen (“to eat in small bites, peck”) (modern German Low German nibbeln, gnibbeln, knibbeln), possibly a variant of knabbelen, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gnet- (“to press”) or imitative.

A pun on the homophony of byte and bite.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: nibbles

Synonyms

1 synonyms
Close in meaning
  • a small byte:nybble

Word family

4 related words
Derivednibble fishnibblesnibblyniblet

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
nextA2nexusnibniblingniceA1

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

nibble — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto