PRATTLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does prattle mean? 

• PRATTLE (noun)
  The noun PRATTLE has 1 sense:

1. idle or foolish and irrelevant talk

  Familiarity information: PRATTLE used as a noun is very rare.

• PRATTLE (verb)
  The verb PRATTLE has 1 sense:

1. speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly

  Familiarity information: PRATTLE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PRATTLE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Idle or foolish and irrelevant talk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

blether; chin music; idle talk; prate; prattle

Hypernyms ("prattle" is a kind of...):

cackle; chatter; yack; yak; yakety-yak (noisy talk)

Derivation:

prattle (speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly)

• PRATTLE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they prattle    ... he / she / it prattles   
Past simple: prattled   
Past participle: prattled   
-ing form: prattling   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

blab; blabber; chatter; clack; gabble; gibber; maunder; palaver; piffle; prate; prattle; tattle; tittle-tattle; twaddle

Hypernyms (to "prattle" is one way to...):

mouth; speak; talk; utter; verbalise; verbalize (express in speech)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "prattle"):

babble; blather; blether; blither; smatter (to talk foolishly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

prattle (idle or foolish and irrelevant talk)

prattler (someone who speaks in a childish way)

 Context examples 

So she prattled on to her hawk, while Alleyne walked by her side, stealing a glance from time to time at this queenly and wayward woman.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If there ever were a pair of twins in danger of being utterly spoiled by adoration, it was these prattling Brookes.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I am not fond of the prattle of children, he continued; for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Just so, pusillanimous; prattling out little moralities that have been prattled into them, and afraid to live life.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The air was full of the clack of their voices and the merry prattling of children, in strange contrast to the flash of arms and constant warlike challenge from the walls above.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Here and there a tawny brook prattled out from among the underwood and lost itself again in the ferns and brambles upon the further side.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an English mind.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)