I. ˈgäbə̇t, usu -ə̇d.+V noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English gobet, from Middle French, mouthful, bite, piece, from gober to gulp down, swallow, probably of Celtic origin; akin to Irish Gaelic & Scottish Gaelic gob beak, snout, protruding mouth
1.
a. : a piece or portion of food or raw meat : morsel
smoking gobbets of ready-cooked fish, chicken, and turkey — H.L.Davis
slice them into gobbets and fling their flesh to the dogs — Henry Taylor
b. : a mouthful of food
slices of bread covered with honey which he was shoveling into himself in dripping gouts and gobbets — Kenneth Roberts
the masses of raw immigrants … were unwelcome gobbets to the Brahmin stomach — V.L.Parrington
2. : a lump or mass usually of indefinite or variable shape : gob
a gobbet of gold — Amy Lowell
some revolting gobbets of cotton — Jean Stafford
watching the volcano throw up its gobbets of smoke — Wallace Stegner
3. : a fragment or extract of literature or music
snippets and gobbets of information culled from the classics — Listener
unrelated gobbets of quantitative knowledge — A.W.Griswold
4. : a small quantity of liquid : drop
gobbets of oil — William Beebe
she shipped a gobbet of sea, only a thin little runnel that escaped at once through the open scuppers — Victoria Sackville-West
II. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Middle English gobeten, from gobet, n.
1. archaic : to cut up (as a trout)
2. obsolete : to swallow in gobbets
they gobbet down his flesh — Robert Stapylton