chittering

chittering is the present participle and gerund of chitter.

Meaning of chitter

chitter (third-person singular simple present chitters, present participle chittering, simple past and past participle chittered)

To make a series of high-pitched sounds; to twitter, chirp or chatter.
- It was a beautifully sunny day and beetles could be heard chittering loudly in the rose garden by the side of the path made out of antique bricks.
(Scotland, obsolete) To shiver or chatter with cold.
- Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, / An' close thy e'e?1786, Robert Burns, A Winter Night

chittering (plural chitterings)

The sound of a chitter.
- Another bird quickly learned to imitate the song of a canary that was mated with it, but as the parrakeet improved in the performance the canary degenerated, and came at last to mingle the other bird's harsh chitterings with its own proper music.1870, Shirley Hibberd, Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste, page 170

plural	chitterings

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

From Middle English chitering, chiterynge, equivalent to chitter + -ing.

What does chittering mean?: Chittering means the sound of a chitter.
What is chittering the present participle and gerund of?: Chittering is the present participle and gerund of chitter.
What part of speech is chittering?: Chittering is a noun.
What is the plural of chittering?: The plural of chittering is chitterings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: chittering (page history and authors); chitter (page history and authors). 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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “chittering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chittering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.