Prattle

//ˈpɹætəl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Silly, childish talk; babble. uncountable

    "Mere prattle without practice is all his soldiership."

  2. 2
    idle or foolish and irrelevant talk wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To speak incessantly and in an inconsequential or childish manner; to babble. ambitransitive

    "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. 2
    speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
babbleblabblabberchatterchatterclack

Example

More examples

"It's better not to prattle on about meaningless things. The more you open your mouth the more likely you are to put your foot in it."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

prittle-prattle

More for "prattle"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.