0 to speak quietly and in a way that is not clear so that the words are difficult to understand: --
[ + speech ] "I'm sorry," he mumbled.
She mumbled something about being too busy.
1 to speak quietly or in an unclear way so that the words are difficult to understand: --
Yet we mumble and grumble about the police.
He has been mumbling away since the debate commenced.
If he did, he must have done so in an extraordinarily mumbled way.
We can hear them mumbling because it is getting through to them.
One of them was waving an indecipherable piece of paper at him while at the same time mumbling all sorts of incomprehensible phrases.
One little child of four recited with a diction which some of us might envy when mumbling our speeches.
It is regarded as an impertinence to suggest that he cannot be heard from the back row because he is mumbling into his notes.
She mumbled something, repeated it, and the warden gathered that she was looking for her teeth which she thought she had left under the pillow.
