Obs. Also 4 burbull, (5 brobill), 6 burbyll, -bul. [Found c. 1300. There are several similar forms in Romanic: It. borbogliare to make a rumbling or grumbling noise, Pg. borbulhar, Sp. borbollar to bubble forth, also mod. Picard borbouller to murmur (Diez); all apparently imitative words, though Diez thinks the Sp. and Pg. possibly formed on L. bulla bubble. The Eng. word can hardly have any actual connection with these, exc. as a parallel onomatopœia, expressing the sound made by the agitation, issuing forth, or flowing of a liquid mixed with vesicles of air or gas. Of this the later BUBBLE appears to have been either a simple variant or a conscious modification. In the later use of burble there is more of the notion of flowing than in bubble, as though burble combined the notions of bubble and purl; but the sb. burble was in 14–16th c. exactly = L. bulla ‘bubble’]
1. intr. To form vesicles or bubbles like boiling water; to rise in bubbles; to flow in or with bubbles, or with bubbling sound.
1303. R. Brunne, Handl. Synne, 10207. As þoȝ here yȝen shulde burble out.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 56. Burblon [1499 burbelyn], as ale or oþer lykore, bullo.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, X. ii. A fayre welle, with clere water burbelynge.
1530. Palsgr., 459/2. To boyle up or burbyll up as a water dothe in a spring, bouilloner.
1577. W. Vallans, Two Swannes, in Leland’s Itin. (1759), V. 10. To Whitwell short, whereof doch burbling rise The spring, that makes this little river runne.
b. To form bubbles in water, etc., to gurgle; cf. BURL v.2
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 5760. Hom was leuer … be brittnet in batell, þen burbull in the flod.
c. 1440. MS. Lincoln A. i. 17. f. 115 (Halliw.). Many a balde manne laye there swykede, Brobillande in his blode.
Hence Burbling vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
a. 1528. Skelton, Replyc. These … friscairly yonkerkyns … basked and baththed in their … burblyng and boyling blode.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., II. II. (Arb.), 113. The burbulinge of the sande declared the sea to bee … shalowe.
1609. Ev. Wom. in Hum., II. i. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. The Meridian Sol Discern’d a dauncing in the burbling brook.
1622. J. Hagthorpe, in Farr’s S. P. (1848), 346. Burbling streames.
