prattle

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹætəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ætəl

prattle (third-person singular simple present prattles, present participle prattling, simple past and past participle prattled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To speak incessantly and in an inconsequential or childish manner; to babble.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:prattle

   • 1906, O. Henry, A Cosmopolite in a Café:

     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.

   • 1952, Daphne Du Maurier, “Monte Verità”, in The Apple Tree:

     I looked across at Anna, and I noticed that her eyes had grown strangely blank, without expression. I felt instinctively that the subject brought up by Victor was one she would not have chosen. Victor, insensitive to this, went prattling on.

• prattler
• prattlingly

prattle (uncountable)

1. Silly, childish talk; babble.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense, Thesaurus:chatter

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], line 27:

     Mere prattle without practice is all his soldiership.

• prittle-prattle

• prattle, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000)
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “prattle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• Platter, partlet, platter