prattle
/ˈprat(ə)l
/verb [no object]
Talk at length in a foolish or inconsequential way: she began to prattle on about her visit to the dentist...
- Successive governments have prattled on at length about the importance of this for our economy and for our businesses.
- I understand if you don't want an annoying chatterbox prattling away in your ear while you eat.
- The automatic writing prattled on like this at length, interrupted by neither full stop nor comma and driven by a rhyme scheme that might politely be described as random but which did not seem especially Japanese in origin.
Synonyms
chatter, babble, prate, blather, blether, ramble, gabble, jabber, twitter, go on, run on, rattle on/away, blither, maunder, drivel, patter, gossip, tittle-tattle, tattle, yap, jibber-jabber, cackle;
Scottish & Irish slabber
informal chit-chat, jaw, gas, gab, blabber, yak, yackety-yak, yabber, yatter, shoot one's mouth off
British informal witter, rabbit, chunter, natter, waffle
North American informal run off at the mouth
Australian/New Zealand informal mag
archaic twaddle, clack, twattle
noun [mass noun]
Foolish or inconsequential talk: do you intend to keep up this childish prattle?...
- Now, you can't hold him responsible for the random prattle of his sibling…
- Witness the Swedish academy's citation, which told us that the seventy-five-year-old playwright ‘uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms’.
- It goes along with prattle about ‘good corporate citizenship’, and the notion that particular corporations, like banks, have reputations which are determined by some kind of popularity polls.
Synonyms
chatter, babble, talk, prating, blather, blether, rambling, gabble, jabber, drivel, palaver, tattle
informal gab, yak, yackety-yak, yabbering, yatter, twaddle
British informal wittering, waffle, waffling, natter, chuntering
archaic clack, twattle
Derivatives
prattler
- One can only hope that the new administration and a new generation of prattlers develop a realistic and holistic goal orientated approach to the burning local demands of today and yesterday.
- Some boring prattlers were the champions of the shows.
- I've seen passengers come close to blows with those pretentious prattlers.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Middle Low German pratelen, from praten (see prate).