gab
verbEtymology From Middle English gabben, from Old English gabban (“to scoff, mock, delude, jest”) and Old Norse gabba (“to mock, make sport of”); both from Proto-Germanic *gabbōną (“to mock, jest”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to be split, be forked, gape”). Cognate with Scots gab (“to mock, prate”), North Frisian gabben (“to jest, sport”), Middle Dutch gabben (“to mock”), Middle Low German gabben (“to jest, have fun”).
1
Obsolete To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie.
- He would chant his own doughty deeds, and “gab,” as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades”1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 12, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 181:
2
To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects.
- "That Mrs. Mender gives a bloke the ear-ache; thinks a bloke's got all day to waste listening to her gab."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 26:
3
Obsolete To speak or tell falsely.