chatter
/ˈtʃætə/US/ˈt͡ʃætɚ/
chatter noun: talk, especially meaningless or unimportant talk.
Noun (1)
chatter (usually uncountable, plural chatters)
- Talk, especially meaningless or unimportant talk.
- Although hardly coming under my theme, I cannot omit this: "Against a woman's chatter: Taste at night fasting a root of radish, that day the chatter cannot harm thee."1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 257
- Synonyms:
- chattering, chatting, nattering
- The sound of talking.
- The vocalisations of a Eurasian magpie, Pica pica.
- The vocalisations of various birds or other animals.
- The hare cried and complained of the terrible February cold and the disgusting chatter of the owls[.]1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 117
- At dawn and at sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parakeets broke into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading away...1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, “‘The Outlying Pickets of the New World’”, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 114
- An intermittent noise, as from vibration.
- Proper brake adjustment will help to reduce the chatter.
- In national security, the degree of communication between suspect groups and individuals, used to gauge the degree of expected terrorist activity.
- The NSA is concerned about increased chatter between known terror groups.
- The situation where a drill or similar tool vibrates and tears the material rather than cutting it cleanly.
- A group of songbirds.
- There was a lark in the sky, a chatter of rooks, and the swoop of swallows arrived to-day.1903, William Babington Maxwell, Fabulous Fancies, G. Richards, page 161
- Some golden fruit still hung from a crab apple and drew a chatter of birds.2015, Julia Rochester, The House at the Edge of the World, Penguin Books Limited
Verb
chatter (third-person singular simple present chatters, present participle chattering, simple past and past participle chattered)
- To talk idly.
- They knitted and chattered the whole time.
- That teacheth trickes eleuen and twentie long, / To tame a ſhrew, and charme her chattering tongue.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- To make a noise by rapid collisions.
- He was so cold that his teeth were chattering.
- The software in modern machine tools can often predict and prevent movements that would cause the cutting tool to chatter.
- To utter sounds which somewhat resemble language, but are inarticulate and indistinct.
- The jay makes answer, as the magpie chatters with delight.1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence
- Is your cat intently staring out the window at a bird on a branch and “chattering” in a kind of shaky, high-pitched, breathy way? If so, she is expressing excitement at what she's observing (or maybe the desire to attack what she sees as prey).2016, David Meyer, Abbie Moore, Pia Salk, The Total Cat Manual, Weldon Owen International, →ISBN
Noun (2)
chatter (plural chatters)
- One who chats.
- A user of livestream chat.
- A user of chat rooms.
- During the chat sessions, two outreach team members would engage in a conversation about the topic chosen for that event in the main chat room and entice other chatters to join in.2013, Michael K. Sullivan, Sexual Minorities, page 148
chatter meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
chatter in Hindi
- talk, especially meaningless or unimportant talk
- बकना baknā, बकवास करना bakvās karnā
- talk idly
- बकना baknā
chatter in Tamil
- அர்த்தமின்றி வேகமாகப் பேசு, கடகடவெனப் பேசு, கடகடப் பேச்சு, அதிர்வு, உதறல், நடுக்கம்
chatter in Marathi
- chatter, especially that which is idle or careless
- गप्प gappa
chatter in Urdu
- کچر کچر, چہکنا, کائں کائں کرنا
More languagesFewer languages
- chatter in Telugu
- వాగు vāgu
- chatter in Malayalam
- കലപില kalapila
- chatter in Kannada
- ತೊಂಡು, ಕೀಸರ, ವಿವೇಚನೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ ಮಾತು, ಗಳಹುವಿಕೆ
- chatter in Sanskrit
- लपति lapati
- chatter in Nepali
- च्याटर
- chatter in Arabic
- هَذَى haḏā
- chatter in Indonesian
- mengoceh
Examples of chatter in a sentence
- The wind rose as the earth darkened, so that fading chatters of woodland animals were countered by the strengthening sounds of waving trees […]2016, Cornelia F. Mutel, A Sugar Creek Chronicle, page 41:
- There was a chatter of birds in the tree tops just above his head which broke his train of thought and brought him back to reality.1961, Louis Raphael Nardini, No Man's Land: A History of El Camino Real, Pelican, page 66:
Synonyms of chatter
25 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of chatter
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | chatters |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | chatters |
| present participle | chattering |
| past participle | chattered |
| past | chattered |
Origin of chatter
From Middle English chateren, from earlier cheteren, chiteren (“to twitter, chatter, jabber”), of imitative origin. Compare Saterland Frisian tjoaterje (“to chatter”), West Frisian tsjotterje (“to chatter”), Dutch schateren, schetteren (“chatter”), Dutch koeteren (“jabber”), Middle Low German kidderen (“to chatter”), German Low German queteln (“to chatter”), dialectal German kaudern (“to gobble (like a turkey)”), Danish kvidre (“to twitter, chirp”).
From chat + -er.
Words formed from chatter
Phrases with chatter
Words that rhyme with chatter
Questions about chatter
- What does chatter mean?
- Chatter means talk, especially meaningless or unimportant talk.
- What is chatter in Hindi?
- Chatter in Hindi is बकना (baknā), बकवास करना (bakvās karnā). See Chatter meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use chatter in a sentence?
- The wind rose as the earth darkened, so that fading chatters of woodland animals were countered by the strengthening sounds of waving trees […]
- What part of speech is chatter?
- Chatter can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce chatter?
- Chatter is pronounced /ˈtʃætə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of chatter?
- The plural of chatter is chatters.
Words near chatter in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chatter (page history and authors); chatter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); गप्प (Marathi) (page history and authors); chatter (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കലപില (Malayalam) (page history and authors); chatter (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); chatter (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-chatter.wav.
Cite this entry: “chatter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chatter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.