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Mouthful vs Nibble - What's the difference?

mouthful | nibble |

As nouns the difference between mouthful and nibble

is that mouthful is the amount that will fit in a mouth while nibble is a small, quick bite taken with the front teeth.

As a verb nibble is

to eat with small, quick bites.

mouthful

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • The amount that will fit in a mouth.
  • * He swallowed a mouthful of sea water when he fell in.
  • (slang) Quite a bit.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1960 , author= , title=(Jeeves in the Offing) , section=chapter VII , passage=“Unquestionably his metabolism is unduly susceptible to stresses resulting from the interaction of external excitations,” he said, and Bobbie patted him on the shoulder in a maternal sort of way, a thing I wouldn't have cared to do myself though our relations were, as I have indicated, more cordial than they had been at one time, and told him he had said a mouthful .}}
  • Something difficult to pronounce or say.
  • * "She sells sea shells" is a bit of a mouthful to say.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1960 , author= , title=(Jeeves in the Offing) , section=chapter X , passage=“Yes, you may leave this little matter entirely to me, Mr Wooster.” “I wish you'd call me Bertie.” “Certainly, certainly.” “And might I call you Roderick?” “I shall be delighted.” “Or Roddy? Roderick's rather a mouthful .” “Whichever you prefer.”}}
  • * 2010 , Alexander Irvine, Iron Man 2: The Junior Novel , page 77
    • "Tony, I'm the executive director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Strategic Homeland Intelligence, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," explained Fury.
    Tony nodded. "Want a tip? Fire your namer of things, because that's a mouthful ."
  • A tirade of abusive language (especially in the term "give someone a mouthful")

    • Synonyms

    * (quantity of liquid) See also

    nibble

    English

    Etymology 1

    Perhaps from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A small, quick bite taken with the front teeth.
  • (in the plural, nibbles) Small snacks such as crisps/potato chips or nuts, often eaten to accompany drinks.
    • Derived terms
    * nibbly

    Verb

    (nibbl)
  • To eat with small, quick bites.
    • The rabbit nibbled the lettuce.
  • * 2 November 2014 , Alex James in (The Guardian), The day I came face-to-face with a tiger
  • *:Giant parrots nibbled seed from the children's fingertips and my sister peeled a couple of satsumas for the lemurs.
  • * 1911 , (Rudyard Kipling), Big Steamers
  • *:"For the bread that you eat and the biscuits you nibble ,
  • *:The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve,
  • *:They are brought to you daily by all us Big Steamers--
  • *:And if anyone hinders our coming you'll starve!"
  • To bite lightly.
    • He nibbled at my neck and made me shiver.
  • To consume gradually.
  • * 11 May 2011 , Ann Carrns in The (New York Times), Prepaid Cards Subject Jobless to Host of Fees
  • *:A report out this week from the National Consumer Law Center lays out a host of ways in which banks nibble away at jobless benefits with fees the center called “junk.”

    • Etymology 2

    From nibble', punning on the homophony of '''byte''' and ' bite

    Alternative forms

    * nybble

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing) A unit of memory equal to half a byte, or four bits.http://foldoc.org/nibble
  • * 1993 , Richard E. Haskell, Introduction to computer engineering (page 287)
    • That is, the lower nibble (the 4 bits 1010 = A) has been masked to zero.

    References