(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.
Soil
Definition:
(v. t.) To feed, as cattle or horses, in the barn or an inclosure, with fresh grass or green food cut for them, instead of sending them out to pasture; hence (such food having the effect of purging them), to purge by feeding on green food; as, to soil a horse.
(n.) The upper stratum of the earth; the mold, or that compound substance which furnishes nutriment to plants, or which is particularly adapted to support and nourish them.
(n.) Land; country.
(n.) Dung; faeces; compost; manure; as, night soil.
(v. t.) To enrich with soil or muck; to manure.
(n.) A marshy or miry place to which a hunted boar resorts for refuge; hence, a wet place, stream, or tract of water, sought for by other game, as deer.
(n.) To make dirty or unclean on the surface; to foul; to dirty; to defile; as, to soil a garment with dust.
(n.) To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.
(v. i.) To become soiled; as, light colors soil sooner than dark ones.
(n.) That which soils or pollutes; a soiled place; spot; stain.
Example Sentences:
(1) The disappearance of the herbicide, Avadex (40% diallate), from five agricultural soils (differing in either pH, carbon content, or nitrogen content), incubated under sterile and non-sterile conditions, was followed for a period of 20 weeks.
(2) The remaining 5 soil samples, obtained from sites that were not in close proximity to lakes, were also negative except for one that contained type B.
(3) One ejaculation followed by daily contact with soiled bedding taken from a male's cage did not increase pregnancy rates.
(4) Fourteen soil bacteriophages active against Rhizobium trifolii W19 have been studied which fall into four structural groups.
(5) Recoveries of these 3 herbicides added to soil, wheat, and barley samples at 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 ppm levels were between 65 and 93%.
(6) The hypothesis was tested that plaque, as a complex soil comprising microorganisms, cell debris, salivary deposits and other ill-defined organic and inorganic components, would be susceptible to removal by a rinse with high detersive action.
(7) While undoubtedly a good understanding of soil microbiology in terms of pedology exists, little is presently known about unsaturated subsoils, and aquifers.
(8) The behavior and effects of atmospheric emissions in soils and plants are discussed.
(9) The first stop in this arid place of poor farms and orchards clinging to the dry soil is Rafah, cut off by the border from its Palestinian counterpart.
(10) Although selenium deficiency in livestock is consequently now rare in Oregon, selenium-deficient soils and attendant selenium deficiency conditions have been reported near the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in the Northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, California, where, paradoxically, selenium toxicity in wildfowl, nesting near evaporation ponds, occurred and attracted wide attention.
(11) It is now recognized that dwarfism in males is frequent around the Mediterranean, where wheat is the staple of life and has been grown for 4,000 years on the same soil, thereby resulting in the depletion of zinc.
(12) The influence of salt mixtures consisting of Ca(H2PO4)2, trace elements, CaSO4, CaCO3, Na2CO3, NaCl and K2SO4 in different combinations on the nitrifying power, evolution of carbon dioxide and the total number of bacteria was studied in arid soils (sandy and alluvial) and semi-humid ones (chernozem and rendzina).
(13) High concentrations of mercury, cadmium, and lead have also been observed in urban soils.
(14) Two long-term tillage studies on fine-textured, clay loam soils were sampled in July and November 1977 following 2 years of limited rainfall.
(15) Adult Persian lime trees grafted on Citrus macrophylla and C. volkameriana were used, planted on a groundwater-affected red ferrilytic soil in the La Habana Province.
(16) Recent reports incriminating Acanthamoeba, a small free-living amoeba, wide-spread in environmental soils and waters, in acanthamoebic keratitis cases wearing soft contact lenses, drew attention to cleaning solutions for contact lenses.
(17) An enzyme (nitrilase) that converts the herbicide bromoxynil (3,5-dibromo-4-hydroxybenzonitrile) to its metabolite 3,5-dibromo-4-hydroxybenzoic acid was shown to be plasmid encoded in the natural soil isolate Klebsiella ozaenae.
(18) Forty soil samples from different desert localities in Kuwait were surveyed for keratinophilic and geophilic dermatophytic fungi.
(19) The well drained soils of the Suiá--Missu forest are very uniform, deep latosols (oxisols) of very dystrophic nature with pH (in water) between 4.0 and 5.0 (see table 2, p. 203).
(20) To reduce the risks posed by the hazard, the report recommends that a management plan be created to determine the level of soil contamination and for managing excavated soil, and to decommission disused septic tanks to prevent the spread of contamination.