Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: FRIBBLE |
FRIBBLEIntransitive verb1. To totter. 2. To act in a trifling or foolish manner; to act frivolously. Noun1. A frivolous, contemptible fellow; a fop. |
Date "FRIBBLE" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1823. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Fribble An effeminate coxcomb of weak nerves, in Garrick's farce of Miss in her Teens. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Slang in 1811 | FRIBBLE. An effeminate fop; a name borrowed from a celebrated character of that kind, in the farce of Miss in her Teens, written by Mr. Garrick. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Fop | Noun: fop, fine gentleman; swell; dandy, dandiprat; exquisite, coxcomb, beau, macaroni, blade, blood, buck, man about town, fast man; fribble, milliner; Jemmy Jessamy, carpet knight; masher, dude. |
Inactivity | Idle away time, trifle away time, fritter away time, fool away time; spend time in, take time in; peddle, piddle; potter, pudder, dabble, faddle fribble, fiddle-faddle; dally, dilly-dally. |
Neglect | Scamp; trifle, fribble; do by halves; cut; slight; (despise); play with, trifle with; slur, skim, skim the surface; effleurer; take a cursory view of. |
Unimportance | Trifling, trivial; slight, slender, light, flimsy, frothy, idle; puerile; (foolish); airy, shallow; weak; powerless; frivolous, petty, niggling; piddling, peddling; fribble, inane, ridiculous, farcical; finical, finikin; fiddle-faddle, fingle-fangle, namby-pamby, wishy-washy, milk and water. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: FRIBBLE |
| English words defined with "FRIBBLE": Fribbler. (references) |
| "FRIBBLE" is generally used as a lexical verb (base form) -- approximately 50.00% of the time. "FRIBBLE" is used about 8 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 50% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Noun (proper) | 37.5% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Noun (singular) | 12.5% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 8 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
fribble | 8 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "FRIBBLE"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | rri kot (idle, loaf, lounge, lounge about), njeri që rri kot (chairwarmer, drone, loafer). (various references) | |
Arabic | لا يهتم (neglect, sidestep, tune out), إهمال (default, delinquency, dereliction, disregard, easiness, forgetfulness, frowst, inadvertence, inadvertency, inattention, inattentiveness, limbo, malpractice, neglect, negligence, omission, overlooking, remissive, remissness, slovenliness). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | безделнича (bum, drone, idle, lallygag, lounge, muck about), безделник (black sheep, bum, cornerman, dangler, dead beat, deadbeat, do nothing, fiddler, gadabout, good for nothing, hobo, lay about, loafer, loiterer, loon, lounger, spalpeen, spiv, tramp, twiddler, vagabond, wastrel). (various references) | |
French | ne prête aucune attention, négligence (frowst). (various references) | |
Hungarian | komolytalan alak, haszontalanságokkal foglalkozik. (various references) | |
Manx | fooilleraght (trifling). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ibblefray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | frivolidade (falderal, frivolity, futility, giddiness, idleness, levity, light-headedness, lightness, non-essential, trifle, trifling), pessoa frívola, entreter-se (recreate), disparate (absurdity, balderdash, blather, blether, bloomer, bosh, bull, bunk, disparate, fiddle-de-dee, fiddlestick, flapdoodle, flummery, foolery, foolishness, fudge, guff, gup, hot, howler, moonshine, mush, nonsense, piffle, punk, simplicity, skittle, tomfoolery, tommy rot, tripe, tump, twaddle, unreason, unwisdom). (various references) | |
Romanian | fleac (a piece of cake, bauble, bunkum, chaff, doit, fillip, flapdoodle, flea-bite, flummery, kickshaw, knick knack, nil, nothing, nothingness, peppercorn, pin head, push over, rot, rubbish, rubble, small beer, stiver, tittle tattle, trash, trifle, trinket), se ţine de fleacuri (dally, frivol, niggle, peddle), pierde-varã (dangler, do nothing, gadabout, Idler, loafer, loiterer, lounger, ne'er do well, slacker, waster), lucru de nimic (trifle). (various references) | |
Russian | бездельничать (bum, dawdle, drone, fiddle about, idle, lallygag, laze, loaf, molder, moulder, sit back, twiddle, while the time away), бездельник (bum, chair warmer, dangler, do nothing, do-naught, do-nothing, doodle, footer, good for nothing, idler, layabout, loafer, loon, lounger, ne'er do well, ne'erdoweel, rapscallion, scalawag, scallawag, scallywag, scapegrace, skulker, sluggard, trifler, twiddler, vagabond). (various references) | |
Spanish | frivolizar (play down), frívolo (airy, flighty, frivolous, giddy, skittish, trifling, trivial, trumpery). (various references) | |
Swedish | slarvig (careless, down at heel, frivolous, inattentive, off hand, offhand, offhanded, shoddy, slapdash, sloppy, slovenly, slutish, untidy), slarver (ne'er do well, sloven), slarva (be careless, careless woman, frivol, slattern), slarv (carelessness, frivolity, inattention, negligence). (various references) | |
Turkish | tembellik etmek (be lazy, drone, fiddle-faddle, have a laze, laze, laze around, lounge, lounge about, slack, slack off, slacken, slug), oyalanmak (amuse oneself, be amused, be pleased with, dally, delay, dilly dally, disport oneself, fool, fool about, fool around, footle, frivol, hang out, linger, loiter, mess around, monkey around, piddle, play around, Potter, potter about, potter at, procrastinate, stay, Tarry, trifle, trifle with, waste time), boşa geçirmek (dawdle, dawdle away, drone away, fool away, frig, idle away, loaf away, loiter away, potter away, waste). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | фривольність (frivolity), фривольний (frivolous, gossamer), нероба (bauchle, dangler, dawdler, dead beat, do nothing, do-naught, good for nothing, layabout, loafer, loiterer, loon, ne'er do well, rambler, scamp, shack, skulk, spalpeen, waster), ледарювати (dawdle, frivol, idle, laze, loaf, mess about, mess around, mooch, poke, potter about, potter around, twiddle one's thumbs), ледащо (dawdle, dawdler, gadabout, layabout, lazybones, ne'er do well, scalawag, scallawag, scallywag, slacker, slob, truant), поводитися фривольно, дріб'язковий (cheeseparing, mean-spirited, near, niggling, nugacious, nugatory, penny-wise, pettifogging, piddling, toy, trifling). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | vô ích việc l m vớ vẩn, người hay l m việc vớ vẩn, ý nghĩ vớ vẩn. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "FRIBBLE": fribbled, fribbler, fribblers, fribbles. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-b-e-f-i-l-r" | |
-1 letter: fibber, libber. | |
-2 letters: bible, birle, bribe, brief, fiber, fibre, filer, flier, liber, lifer, rifle. | |
-3 letters: bier, bile, birl, bleb, brie, file, fire, lief, lier, life, lire, reif, riel, rife, rile. | |
-4 letters: bel, bib, ebb, elf, fer, fib, fie, fil, fir, ire, lei, lib, lie, reb, ref, rei, rib, rif. | |
-5 letters: be, bi, ef, el, er. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-b-e-f-i-l-r" | |
+1 letter: flabbier, fribbled, fribbler, fribbles. | |
+2 letters: fribblers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage Frequency 4. Expressions: Internet | 5. Translations: Modern 6. Derivations 7. Anagrams 8. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
