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The Collaborative International Dictionary
To gobble up

Gobble \Gob"ble\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Gobbled; p. pr. & vb. n. Gobbling.] [Freq. of 2d gob.]

  1. To swallow or eat greedily or hastily; to gulp.

    Supper gobbled up in haste.
    --Swift.

  2. To utter (a sound) like a turkey cock.

    He . . . gobbles out a note of self-approbation.
    --Goldsmith.

    To gobble up, to capture in a mass or in masses; to capture suddenly. [Slang]

Usage examples of "to gobble up".

He is a miser, while she is a glutton, a solitary eater, most innocent of vices and yet the shadow or parodic vice of his, for he would like to eat up all the world, or, failing that, since fate has not spread him a sufficiently large table for his ambitions, he is a mute, inglorious Napoleon, he does not know what he might have done because he never had the opportunity -- since he has not access to the entire world, he would like to gobble up the city of Fall River.

It attacked, threatening to gobble up Punny, because she was delectable, and Unpun tried to protect her.

The dragon was about to gobble up the two people trapped on the ledge.

At least, she reflected, there were no birds down here to gobble up her backtrail.

In 1939, Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia, then took a part of Lithuania and prepared to gobble up the so-called Polish Corridor, a narrow strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

All around her, the black and cold water waited impatiently, a prowling animal waiting to gobble up the doomed woman.

George sat down on the floor and began to gobble up cakes and tarts, for she was terribly hungry.