c1386 G. Chaucer Canon's Yeoman's Prol. 131 Whil this yeman was thus in his talkyng This Chanon drough hym neer.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Fairf. 14) l. 27792 Of slauþe comis..vnnaite talking [Vesp. talckhing].

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 14760 It es bot foli al þi talking.

c1450 tr. Thomas à Kempis De Imitatione Christi iii. lvii. 134 Þi consolacions are not as mannes talkinges or confabulacions.

?1504 S. Hawes Example of Vertu sig. ee.i^v Of whome I oft haue herd grete talkynge.

1667 Bp. J. Taylor 2nd Pt. Dissuasive from Popery ii. vi. 144 The superstitious talkings and actings of their Priests.

1782 W. Cowper Conversation in Poems 212 Words learn'd by rote, a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse.

1873 T. Hardy Pair of Blue Eyes III. iv. 91 Knight did most of the talking along the journey.

c1875 ‘Brenda’ Froggy's Little Brother (new ed.) iii. 35 I'd give him such a talking-to as never he had in his life before!

1884 W. C. Russell Jack's Courtship xvii A person capable of giving a seaman a talking to.

1903 Red Book Aug. 367/2 The girl did the talking, but for nearly an hour the head of the detective bureau sat silent, impassive as the sphinx.

1948 G. Vidal City & Pillar x. 303 Bob did most of the talking and Jim listened.

1969 New Yorker 1 Nov. 25/1 Alice's Restaurant—Arthur Penn's extension of Arlo Guthrie's talking-blues record.

1979 M. Boyce I was There! 10/2 My first attempt at song writing took the form of humorous verse (in ‘talking Blues’ fashion).

1562 N. Winȝet Certain Tractates (1888) I. 8 Vtheris..makis of the Gospell ane takin craft.

1910 tr. Freud's Outl. & Devel. Psychoanal. in Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. XXI. 184 The patient herself, who at this time of her illness..spoke only English, gave this new kind of treatment the name of ‘talking cure’.

1977 R. Holland Self & Social Context viii. 240 At first sight nothing would seem more obvious than the dominant role of language in therapy—the talking cure.

1681 J. Owen Nature of Apostasie in Wks. (1852) VII. 256 This makes..misspense of time in talking-houses.

1922 S. Lewis Babbitt iv. 47 A broker..who understood Talking Points, Strategic Values, Key Situations, Underappraisals.

1979 B. Parvin Deadly Dyke vi. 28 Quite a change of climate..but a talking point.

1912 C. Mackenzie Carnival xliv. 385 Village! Talking-shop, I should say.

1922 A. M. Hyamson Dict. Eng. Phr. 337/1 Talking mill (shop), the, (contemptuously) the House of Commons.

1942 R. G. Collingwood New Leviathan 213 Contemptuous language about the ‘talking-shop at Westminster’.

1944 F. A. Hayek Road to Serfdom v. 46 Parliaments came to be regarded as ineffective ‘talking shops’.

1963 V. Gielgud Goggle-box Affair v. 49 I was an M.P. then... God knows why, damned talking-shop!

1979 R. Blythe View in Winter i. 72 The forge is the classic talking-shop of the village.

1548 N. Udall et al. tr. Erasmus Paraphr. Newe Test. I. Luke xxiv. 189 A common talkyng stocke to all peoples.

1560 J. Heywood Fourth Hundred Epygrams ii. sig. Aiv One talkyng tung.

1680 R. L'Estrange tr. Erasmus 20 Select Colloquies vi. 86 This is the talkingst place that ever I set my foot in.

1710 R. Steele Tatler No. 197. ⁋3 The talking Creatures we meet in publick Places.

1770 O. Goldsmith Deserted Village 14 The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made.

1870 M. D. Conway Earthward Pilgrimage xiii. 171 Man has been defined as the talking animal.

1904 Science Siftings 26 Mar. 353/1 The inventor believes that in a short time these talking photographs will supersede the phonograph.

1908 Variety 16 May 11/3 (heading) Natural voice talking pictures... The idea is to have a capable company behind the screen and take up the cue as each character comes in view.

1921 Observer 13 Mar. 14/2 These two men claim that their ‘Cinephone’, as they call it, makes the talking film a commercial possibility.

1927 N.Y. Times 28 Aug. vii. 4 If a ‘talking movie’ throughout were being made, it would be necessary to film a thousand feet at a time.

1978 Lancashire Life Oct. 97/3 Talking-pictures were introduced under the management of the late Ignatius Cullen, whose daughters continue to run the Civic Hall Cinema..showing ‘wholesome family films’ only.

1932 Ann. Rep. Amer. Foundation for the Blind 2 The development of books on phonograph records, or ‘Talking Books’, will be one of the greatest boons ever conferred on the blind.

1960 Guardian 22 July 3/4 The blind in Britain are to have ‘talking books’ incorporating the most advanced tape recording and play-back techniques... The present talking-books are long-playing records.

1978 D. Bloodworth Crosstalk xxi. 168 Extra-large cassettes..from the library of the National Institute for the Blind... He examined the talking books.

1936 Discovery Oct. 315/1 The ‘talking-clock’ from which, merely by dialling T-I-M, every telephone user can now learn the exact time.

1969 N. Freeling Tsing-Boum xiii. 94 One could phone the talking clock.

1925 C. Morley Thunder on Left xix. 241 There was the bleat of one of the talking dolls. ‘Maaa-Maa!’ it cried.

1974 H. R. F. Keating Underside vii. 66 He had been able to regard her completely in the light of some talking doll, irritating but unconnected..with the reality of life.

1977 Detroit Free Press 11 Dec. 15- a/3 (advt.) The many phrases this big, beautiful talking doll ‘Baby Sez’ will make your daughter the happiest kid on the block.

1897 M. Kingsley Trav. W. Afr. vi. 114 In the street one sees the characteristic standing drum..and one or two talking-drums besides.

1923 R. S. Rattray Ashanti iii. 104 The big talking drums were immediately behind him and beat out: The King has sat down.

1966 C. Achebe Man of People xiii. 166 These were the same people that only the other day..praise-singers followed with song and talking-drum.

1977 Rolling Stone 24 Mar. 48/2 Even drummer Mick Fleetwood finally ventured out from behind his drum kit to play the African talking drum on ‘World Turning’.

1983 Guardian 19 July 9/4 A talking drums player from Ghana who seemed to have wandered on stage uninvited.

1968 Punch 24 Apr. 617/3 Indifference to people who weren't talking-heads?.. If they were so monumentally unmemorable shouldn't they have been skipped altogether?

1976 Listener 15 Jan. 52/1 I begin to get very tired of the ‘important’ interview—indeed, of all talking heads—on television.

1980 Listener 4 Sept. 299/1 I looked at the talking heads, telling their stories directly to the camera.

1843 T. C. Haliburton Sam Slick in Eng. ii I jist hops out of bed, and feels for my trunk, and outs with my talkin'-irons, that was all ready loaded.

1889 J. S. Farmer Americanisms Talking iron, a gun or rifle. A talker that invariably says what it means.

1844 Quincy (Illinois) Herald 9 Feb. 3/2 A German, named Faber,..in New York, has invented and brought to perfection a talking machine. It is played on by keys like a piano, and can be made to say any thing, in any language, that its inventor desires.

1844 Daily Picayune (New Orleans) 18 Mar. 38/2 Why don't you go see the Talking Machine, and take little Matilda along with you?

1846 N. P. Willis Compl. Wks. iii. 674/2 I had a half-hour's interview with the talking machine this morning, and found him a more entertaining android than most of my wooden acquaintances.

1850 T. Carlyle Latter-day Pamphlets No. 1. 52 A redtape Talking-machine and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence.

1891 Appletons' Ann. Cycl. 1890 709/1 In 1886, J. S. Taintor, working along the lines followed by Mr. Edison, produced a talking machine, which was called the graphophone, or phonograph-graphophone.

1897 R. M. Stuart In Simpkinsville 110 The little talkin' machine inside it has got out o' fix..an' it don't say ‘papa’ an' ‘mama’ any more.

1912 Chambers's Jrnl. July 495/2 The talking-machine has not been brought to such a high pitch of perfection as..the kinematograph.

1930 W. Faulkner As I lay Dying 181 Cash aimed to buy that talking machine from Suratt with that money.

1895 H. B. M. Watson in Chap-bk. III. 489 At the word, spoken very talkingly, and with such an absence of offense, my dudgeon vanished.