[f. WARBLE v.1 + -ING1.] The action of the verb in various senses, esp. soft and melodious singing.
1587. M. Grove, Pelops & Hipp. (1878), 68. With shrillish notes I would ne stay nor stent of warbuling.
1608. Willet, Hexapla Exod., 231. Running catches and curious warbling.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 24. The Air … resounds with the Warbling of Birds.
1825. Scott, Jrnl., 21 Nov. (1890), I. 6. Tom Moore’s is the most exquisite warbling I ever heard.
pl. 1757. Gray, Bard, III. iii. And distant warblings lessen on my ear.
1781. Cowper, Retirem., 569. The warblings of the blackbird, clear and strong.
1830. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 319. The groves … are echoing with the warblings of thousands upon thousands of birds.
b. Sc. Playing grace-notes on the bagpipe.
1896. N. Munro, Lost Pibroch, etc., 251. I heard him fill the night-fall with the ‘Bhoilich’ of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in his warbling.
c. U.S. = YODELING vbl. sb.
1880. ‘Mark Twain,’ Tramp Abr., xxviii. 257. We recognised, also, that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone and falsetto which at home we call ‘Tyrolese warbling.’
