Word.ws English Dictionary

pitter-patter

UK/ˈpɪt.əˈpæt.ə//ˈpɪt.ɚˈpæt.ɚ/

pitter-patter noun: a soft, percussive sound, as of tiny feet, or of rain on a rooftop; patter.

Noun

pitter-patter (uncountable)

  1. A soft, percussive sound, as of tiny feet, or of rain on a rooftop; patter.
    • Once or twice I heard a faint pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going hither and thither on the sand far below me, and there were more bird-like sounds, but that was all.1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Stillness”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book II (The Earth under the Martians), page 237
    • This yearning to hear the pitter-patter of penguin feet is no sudden whim. When a teen-ager, I entertained thoughts of the two of us walking side-by-side on the beach or strolling through shopping centers. As time passed, I knew I must take action or go penguinless through life.1970 April 19, Pat McDonnell, “Project Penguin fowls out”, in Independent Press-Telegram, volume 19, number 36, Long Beach, Calif., →OCLC, page W-1, column 2

Verb

pitter-patter (third-person singular simple present pitter-patters, present participle pitter-pattering, simple past and past participle pitter-pattered)

  1. (intransitive) To patter; to scurry.
    • The rain was coming down heavier now, the drops pitter-pattering on the roof of the truck.1996, Stephen Leather, The Double Tap, BCA, page 97

pitter-patter meaning in Urdu, Bengali and Vietnamese

pitter-patter in Urdu

soft percussive sound
رِم جِھم rim jhim

pitter-patter in Bengali

soft percussive sound
রিমঝিম rimojhim

pitter-patter in Vietnamese

soft percussive sound
lộp độp, bôm bốp

Forms of pitter-patter

third-person singular presentpitter-patters
present participlepitter-pattering
past participlepitter-pattered
pastpitter-pattered

Origin of pitter-patter

Reduplication of patter.

Questions about pitter-patter

What does pitter-patter mean?
Pitter-patter means a soft, percussive sound, as of tiny feet, or of rain on a rooftop; patter.
What is pitter-patter in Urdu?
Pitter-patter in Urdu is رِم جِھم (rim jhim). See Pitter-patter meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is pitter-patter?
Pitter-patter can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce pitter-patter?
Pitter-patter is pronounced /ˈpɪt.əˈpæt.ə/ (UK).

Words near pitter-patter in the dictionary

  1. pitted-shelled turtles
  2. Pittenger
  3. Pittengers
  4. Pittenweem
  5. pitter
  6. pitter-patter
  7. pitter-pattered
  8. pitter-pattering
  9. pitter-patters
  10. pittered
  11. pittering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pitter-patter (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pitter-patter.ogg.

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