prattle

present singular third person prattles · participle present prattling · participle past prattled · past prattled

1. ambitransitiveTo 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.

   1906, O. Henry, A Cosmopolite in a Café

   1 more example

   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.

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

   Synonyms: babble, bat the breeze, blab, blabber, blather, carp, chat, chatter

1. uncountableSilly, childish talk; babble.

   Mere prattle without practice is all his soldiership.

   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

   1 more example

   [...] if you fatigue people by haying them always present, if you encourage or repeat their prattle and their sports; [...]

   1833, Elisabeth Celnart, The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness and Propriety of Deportment: Dedicated to the Youth of Both Sexes, Allen and Ticknor and Carter, Hendee, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 15

   Synonyms: absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce, bafflegab, balderdash, balls