(v. i.) To talk much and idly; to prate; hence, to talk lightly and artlessly, like a child; to utter child's talk.
(v. t.) To utter as prattle; to babble; as, to prattle treason.
(n.) Trifling or childish tattle; empty talk; loquacity on trivial subjects; prate; babble.
Example Sentences:
(1) The talk coming from senior Tories – at least some of whom have the grace to squirm when questioned on this topic – suggesting that it's all terribly complicated, that it was a long time ago and that even SS members were, in some ways, themselves victims, is uncomfortably close to the kind of prattle we used to hear from those we called Holocaust revisionists.
(2) An immensely cerebral man, who trained himself to need only six hours of sleep - believing that a woman should have seven and only a fool eight - Mishcon was not a man given to small talk, nor one who would tolerate prattle for the sake of it.
(3) Comparisons between present-day China and the soulless, dreary totalitarian socialist state immortalised in Orwell's masterpiece are difficult to sustain after seeing clutch after clutch of Chinese teenagers, dressed in the latest quasi-Japanophile fashion, walk down a mobbed Beijing pedestrian shopping arcade nibbling at bouquets of candy floss and prattling on as if the phrase "commodity fetishism" had never crossed their young lips.
(4) The opening prattle this week is all about the seven deadly sins.
(5) I think they're about to escort me from the building for prattling on in an unGuardian manner.
(6) Melancholia itself would have been talking point enough without Von Trier's prattling.
(7) These days depression is the stuff of postprandial dinner-party prattle, but Plath explored the condition with no sense of its being a "condition" that others shared, no established therapeutic vocabulary, and no Prozac.
(8) The South Americans have played 25 games, and are guaranteed to play two more including tomorrow's match • Three of Diego Forlán's four goals in World Cup finals history have come from outside the box 7:10pm: As ITV's panel prattling on about how surprising it is to see harmony in the Dutch camp - exagerrating the divisions of the past and reinforcing the view that English society remains stubbornly anti-intellectual (and anti-male knitting), afraid of anyone who does not fear to speak his mind - let's see what's happening in Uruguay.
(9) Anyway, I won't prattle on for there is more live action to be found: San Jose Earthquakes vs LA Galaxy is about to kick off.
(10) Or it could be that the Sun loves me when I'm a prattling, giggling, Essex boy "Shagger of the Year", when I'm in my proper place, beneath vacuous headlines, herding their flock towards dumb lingo and crap bingo, when I'm being cheeky on MTV or even unwisely invading answerphones, in a way that many would argue, is less offensive than the manner that they are alleged to have done.
(11) Inexperienced MPs who prattle on about deeper UK involvement in Syria don’t yet grasp how merely symbolic much of it is nowadays.
(12) When I hear him prattle on inanely I can imagine how Neil Lennon felt when the Geordie dullard kicked him in the head."
(13) 2.30pm BST If you'd like to see me, Ian Prior, Barry Glendenning and Owen Gibson prattling on in front of a camera about Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, then you're in luck!
(14) The forced cheerfulness of Nicholson's earlier scenes with the hotel manager are a sharp contrast to the sense of anger and tension as he drives and listens to his wife and son prattle on.
Rattle
Definition:
(v. i.) To make a quick succession of sharp, inharmonious noises, as by the collision of hard and not very sonorous bodies shaken together; to clatter.
(v. i.) To drive or ride briskly, so as to make a clattering; as, we rattled along for a couple of miles.
(v. i.) To make a clatter with the voice; to talk rapidly and idly; to clatter; -- with on or away; as, she rattled on for an hour.
(v. t.) To cause to make a rattling or clattering sound; as, to rattle a chain.
(v. t.) To assail, annoy, or stun with a rattling noise.
(v. t.) Hence, to disconcert; to confuse; as, to rattle one's judgment; to rattle a player in a game.
(v. t.) To scold; to rail at.
(n.) A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum.
(n.) Noisy, rapid talk.
(n.) An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles when shaken.
(n.) A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.
(n.) A scolding; a sharp rebuke.
(n.) Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a rattling sound.
(n.) The noise in the throat produced by the air in passing through mucus which the lungs are unable to expel; -- chiefly observable at the approach of death, when it is called the death rattle. See R/le.
Example Sentences:
(1) In EastEnders , the mystery surrounding the identity of Kat's secret squeeze continues amid the grinding of narrative levers and the death rattle of overflogged script-horses.
(2) While none of the fears that have rattled markets are yet realised, the relentless focus on possible risks will likely see another soggy Asia-Pacific trading session.
(3) Kim has ruled the country since his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, and his early tenure has been marked by sabre-rattling and repeated nuclear tests.
(4) I drive past buildings that I know, or assume, to house bedsits, their stucco peeling like eczema, their window frames rattling like old bones, and I cannot help myself from picturing the scene within: a dubious pot on an equally dubious single ring, the female in charge of it half-heartedly stirring its contents at the same time as she files her nails, reads an old Vogue, or chats to some distant parent on the telephone.
(5) Klitschko is a self-confessed control freak; so Fury was trying to rattle him out of his rhythm.
(6) Partners to the drug-treated mice showed a decrease in the occurrence of offensive ambivalence and of the element "rattle".
(7) (Peter Adamik) The Order of Merit (OM) awarded to individuals of greatest achievement in the fields of the arts, learning, literature and science, goes to the conductor Sir Simon Rattle , and to the heart surgeon Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub.
(8) Rattled investors brace for big week as Federal Reserve considers rate increase Read more The Dow Jones industrial average fell 114 points, or 0.7%, to 16,528.
(9) Directional responses did not differ from the standard when rattle bursts were repeated at a rate of 20 per second for 1 s (experiment 1).
(10) Rattle said his performances in these later years were transcendent.
(11) A s Michael Howard’s flag-waving, sabre-rattling, Madrid-baiting intervention made clear, Gibraltar can occupy an oddly atavistic place in some corners of Britain’s collective psyche.
(12) Petraeus and his men would make unannounced visits in the middle of the night to Ljiljana Karadžić, the fugitive’s wife, with the aim of rattling her with a show of bravado about his imminent capture, in the hope she would rush to warn him, and give away his location.
(13) In the mid-1990s, when the movement's influence on HTB was at its height, I visited a Chelsea church run by Nicky Lee, one of the men who converted Welby at Cambridge, and when the Holy Spirit started knocking people down, I'd hear the distinct rattle of pearls when the young women fainted to the floor.
(14) 9.33pm BST 73 min: Pedro this time looks for Torres in behind – but his pass rattles straight into the shins of Francisco Silva.
(15) He has taken various elements of the war, and translated their brutality into elegiac works, as with Freedom Qashoush Symphony, a delicate song which starts with rattled off gunfire, the symphony culminates in an urgent instrumental cry of freedom, inspired by Ibrahim al-Qashoush, an early symbol of rebel martyrdom.
(16) Juventus 1-3 Barcelona | Champions League final match report Read more He redeemed himself soon after with a lunging challenge to break up another attack but Juventus overall looked rattled.
(17) The city appeared, according to a report in the Daily Mirror, “like a battlefield with blazing houses, hordes of refugees, dead cattle and horses and the rattle of automatic weapons”.
(18) Accusing Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, of “sabre-rattling”, he said the UK commitment to a new Nato rapid reaction force is to be extended by three years, with 1,000 troops sent next year and 3,000 in 2017.
(19) A telecom engineer who has not been able to find work, he rattled off statistics: unemployment in the province is 42% – the highest in Spain – rising to 69% for those under the age of 30.
(20) Paresh Davdra, co-founder of RationalFX, said the situation was rattling investors and raising parallels with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.