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prattle

verb
/ˈpɹætəl/

Etymology

From prate + -le (early modern English frequentative suffix). Compare Dutch pruttelen and Dutch preutelen (“to mutter”).

  1. derived from *bred-✻ — “to wander, rove”
  2. derived from *prattuz✻ — “idle or boastful talk, deceit”
  3. derived from *prattu✻
  4. derived from *pratt✻
  5. derived from praten
  6. inherited from prætt
  7. inherited from praten
  8. suffixed as prattle — “prate + le”

Definitions

  1. To speak incessantly and in an inconsequential or childish manner

    To speak incessantly and in an inconsequential or childish manner; to babble.

    • And as E. Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay.

  2. Silly, childish talk

    Silly, childish talk; babble.

    • Mere prattle without practice is all his soldiership.
    • [...] if you fatigue people by haying them always present, if you encourage or repeat their prattle and their sports; [...]

The neighborhood

Derived

prattlebox, prattlement, prattlesome

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for prattle. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA