Babbler

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

( Acts 17:18)

Augustine and Wyclif wrongly derive the word σπερμολόγος from σπείρω λόγους and translate it ‘sower of words.’ It is properly derived from σπέρμα, ‘seed,’ and λέγειν, ‘to gather.’ Originally an adjective, the derived substantive was used of small birds gathering crumbs (Aristophanes, Av . 233, 580). It was afterwards applied to loafers in the market-place who gained a precarious livelihood by what they could pick up, and it thus connotes ‘a vulgar fellow,’ ‘a parasite.’ Greek writers used it as a term of contempt for plagiarists and pseudo-philosophers (cf. Eustathius on Homer, Odyss . v. 490), and Zeno thus names one of his followers. W. M. Ramsay ( St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen , 1895, p. 242) speaks of the word as ‘characteristically Athenian slang, clearly caught from the very lips of the Athenians.’ The word thus contemptuously implies one who is an outsider and yet wishes to pose as one of the inner circle, and probably does not refer to anything that the Apostle had said. It would seem, therefore, that the expression was used by the philosophers who have just been mentioned rather than by the populace in general. They resented the intrusion of one who had no credentials, and from the first viewed him with hostility (see, further, Ramsay, ‘St. Paul in Athens,’ in Expositor , 5th ser., ii. [1895] 262ff.

F. W. Worsley.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Acts 17:18

Another Greek word bebelos refers to something outside the religious sphere. It appears in   1 Timothy 4:7;  1 Timothy 6:20;  2 Timothy 2:16;  Hebrews 12:16 , usually in reference to chatter or babbling talk about worldly things, an activity Christians should avoid. In Hebrews it refers to a godless person.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Babbler .   Acts 17:18 ‘What will (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘would’) this babbler say?’ The Gr. word translated ‘babbler’ means one who picks up a precarious living, like a crow. ‘The language of such persons,’ says Bp. Chase, ‘was, and is, plentiful and (on occasion) low’; but it is possible that the Athenians applied the word to St. Paul not on account of his speech, but his looks. In that case the modern coinage ‘carpet-bagger’ would give the sense.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

This is literally 'master of the tongue,'  Ecclesiastes 10:11 : the verse may be translated, "If the serpent bite without enchantment, then the 'charmer' hath no advantage." In   Acts 17:18 the word is σπερμολόγος lit. 'seed picker;' a word of contempt; one that picks up idle tales, a gossip, chatterer; 'base fellow,' margin .

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) A hound too noisy on finding a good scent.

(2): (n.) An idle talker; an irrational prater; a teller of secrets.

(3): (n.) A name given to any one of family (Timalinae) of thrushlike birds, having a chattering note.

King James Dictionary

BAB'BLER, n. An idle talker an irrational prattler a teller of secrets.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

bab´lẽr בּעל הלּשׁון , ba‛al ha - lāshōn  ; the King James Version of  Ecclesiastes 10:11 literally, "master of the tongue"; the Revised Version (British and American) Charmer; λαπιστής , lapistḗs , the King James Version of Ecclesiasticus 20:7; the Revised Version (British and American) Braggart; σπερμολόγος , spermológos  ; the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) of  Acts 17:18 ): The latter Greek word is used of birds, such as the crow, that live by picking up small seeds ( spérma , "a seed," légein , "to gather"), and of men, for "hangers on" and "parasites" who obtained their living by picking up odds and ends off merchants' carts in harbors and markets. It carries the "suggestion of picking up refuse and scraps, and in the literature of plagiarism without the capacity to use correctly" (Ramsay). The Athenian philosophers in calling Paul a spermologos , or "ignorant plagiarist," meant that he retailed odds and ends of knowledge which he had picked up from others, without possessing himself any system of thought or skill of language - without culture. In fact it was a fairly correct description of the Athenian philosophers themselves in Paul's day.

Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen , 141ff.