Home UK English yammer

Meaning of yammer in English:

yammer

verb

[no object]informal

  • 1Talk foolishly or incessantly.

    ‘he was yammering on as if he had an enthralled audience at his feet’
    ‘it seems not only boring but also pointless to keep yammering away about it’
    • ‘I could just yammer on long enough now to make it so that you'll have to scroll down to see it.’
    • ‘Mark slammed the door to the manor; he was tired of listening to his father yammer on.’
    • ‘The ride home was noisy, Corrie keeping the conversation alive by yammering on about whatever came to her mind.’
    • ‘This is one reason I kept yammering about the dialectical nature of rock; it often embeds a critique and a conflict.’
    • ‘Underworld yammers on and on about bloodlines and supernatural compost when it should be kicking it up a notch in the action department.’
    • ‘She was yammering about this or that, while her two male friends sat down across from me - I'll call them Drunk and Drunker.’
    • ‘And don't start yammering about the Democrats being worse still.’
    • ‘He takes me for tea in a teashop with ruthlessly minimalist decor - there aren't any chairs - and yammers at length about the places he can take me to.’
    • ‘By the time I got back Pete was yammering on about the Indianapolis Colt's cheerleaders and the Eagles had scored and things were looking up.’
    • ‘As a professional who talks for a living, I am continually amazed that the world is full of people yammering away all for the sheer pleasure of expressing themselves.’
    • ‘I'm making my second trip by the time she has it in the door, but no sooner has she set it down when she's off to the car again, yammering on about something that I can't quite make out.’
    • ‘The standard jammer only has a radius of about 20 feet, but that's enough to shut-down any cell-phoner who's yammering away in a restaurant or who takes a call in a movie theater.’
    • ‘Also, satellite and cable tv offer vastly underappreciated music programming, dozens and dozens of channels of all kinds of music with no damned DJ yammering on or even commercials.’
    • ‘For the whole hour, the whole lucky hour that Andy got to hear her father yammer on about his upcoming election and how crucial it was that they remain ‘a strong family unit.’’
    • ‘Plus, these days people routinely become famous for appearing in advertising, designing things, being good cooks, yammering away on the internet, etc. etc.’
    • ‘Regulars have wandered in from the pool table by the door, the annoying drunk has stopped yammering and approached the stage for a last minute autograph, and Jolie's mother is busily catering to a line at the merchandise table.’
    • ‘Friday night I went to that gay blogger thing everyone's been yammering on about to pimp WYSIWYG and met every keyboard-and-digital-camera-wielding fag in existence, or so it seemed.’
    • ‘I don't want to cheese out on you guys and start yammering on about Oprah-esque topics like paying it forward, but god knows how many dollars we all toss around that don't help anyone do anything…’
    • ‘The legendary bassist happily yammers on about some of the mythology surrounding the Ramones, including the origins of ‘Chinese Rocks,’ an ode to smack - penned by Dee Dee, but made famous by the Heartbreakers.’
    talk, gossip, chatter, chitter-chatter, speak, converse, have a conversation, engage in conversation, tittle-tattle, prattle, jabber, jibber-jabber, babble, prate, go on, run on
    1. 1.1Make a loud, repetitive noise.
      ‘the seismographs were yammering for days’
      • ‘Swarms of scooters yammered hysterically past, sounding like runaway chainsaws.’
      • ‘Dolly the Mega-Cat delivered her verdict on the day very early this morning, yowling and yammering to be let in.’
      • ‘There's even a choir of tweeting birds in the backyard now - for all I know they've been yammering on all afternoon, but when the sun's out you somehow hear them better.’
      • ‘And here I am now, with the shades lowered and foam rammed in my ears, only to find out that nothing filters out the jackhammers that yammer at over 110 decibels an hour.’
      chat, talk idly, chatter, prattle, prate, go on, run on, rattle away, rattle on, gossip, tittle-tattle, tattle, ramble, gabble, jabber, babble, blather, blether, blither, twitter, maunder, drivel, patter, yap, jibber-jabber, cackle

noun

mass nouninformal

  • 1Foolish or incessant talk.

    ‘the look on his face stopped Bob's nervous yammer’
    ‘the yammer of their animated conversation’
    • ‘That's enough ganglia to mime an opera of emotions: a yammer of remorse, perhaps, or a blunt ‘sit on it.’’
    • ‘There, Confederate suddenly comes to life with a yammer and a hiss, the clang of metal being shaped by men whose grease- and nicotine-stained hands are both rough and knowing.’
    • ‘At the moment the TVs broadcast a repeating loop of one of the Guerilla News Network's pastiched send-ups of Bush's war yammer from last year - another scathing and witty but oft-screened bit of insurgent Final Cut Pro handiwork.’
    1. 1.1Loud and sustained or repetitive noise.
      ‘the yammer of enemy fire’

Origin

Late Middle English (as a verb meaning ‘lament, cry out’): alteration of earlier yomer, from Old English geōmrian ‘to lament’, suggested by Middle Dutch jammeren.

Pronunciation

yammer

/ˈjamə/