chumble

present singular third person chumbles · participle present chumbling · participle past chumbled · past chumbled

1. ambitransitiveTo peck at or nibble.

   "Can you play the violin?" asked Rosemary loftily, out of a chumbling refined mouth.

   1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 475

   2 more examples

   The baby, whimpering when Janey thrust the crust into his mouth, now whimpered no longer but chumbled at the dry bread, slobbered over it, wiped it down Janey's front, dropped it in the grass and at once forgot about it, sitting on her lap […]

   1941, Sarah Campion, Mo Burdekin, page 8

   Little dogs (his spaniel’s eyes encountered many) leaped and fawned about her, their sharp neat teeth clogging in the soft candy they chumbled from her gloved hand.

   1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun