bbbb.

n.  the sputters of an engine.  The sound is made with “lip rolls or ‘motorboating,’ which is rolling your lips on a ‘bbbb’ sound” (Susan Anders, The No Scales, Just Songs Vocal Workout, Volume 2).

<We watch as he loops the [paper] airplane through the air and makes bbbb’s with his lips.  —Kristin Waterfield Duisberg, The Good Patient: A Novel.>

n.  the title of a poem by Mak Dizdar.

<The poem “bbbb,” inspired by what looks like funerary graffiti, points out to its ambiguity that allows us to have faith in language but robs us of the ability to count on its semantic durability.  —Amila Buturovic, Stone Speaker: Medieval Tombs, Landscape, and Bosnian Identity in the Poetry of Mak Dizdar.>

bbbbb.

n.  a soap bubble; see also b-bb-bbbb.

<I blew a perfect stream of airy, iridescent globes, so pretty, gone in seconds, like fireworks.  “Bbbbb,” the baby said, and I put my cheek next to his soft one and said, “Bbbbb” with a little more air, and we blew a big floating bubble that didn’t pop until a grass blade speared it, poof.  —Patricia Gaffney, Circle of Three: A Novel.>

bbbbbbb.

n.  a vocal imitation of “a sailing boat in a tub of water,” as discussed in Baby Talk: The Art of Communicating with Infants and Toddlers by Monica Devine.

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