prattling
prattling is the present participle and gerund of prattle.
Meaning of prattle
Verb
prattle (third-person singular simple present prattles, present participle prattling, simple past and past participle prattled)
- To 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
- Synonyms:
- babble, bat the breeze, blab, blabber, blather, carp, chat, chatter, chew the fat, chew the rag
Noun
prattling (plural prattlings)
- Prattle; foolish speech.
- I haue heard of your pratlings too wel enough.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- The boy, who had been regarding him with the tolerant curiousness one accords to the prattlings of the feeble-minded, answered promptly.1912, Jack London, chapter 1, in The Scarlet Plague, New York: Macmillan, published 1915, page 19
Forms of prattling
| plural | prattlings |
|---|
Questions about prattling
- What does prattling mean?
- Prattling means prattle; foolish speech.
- What is prattling the present participle and gerund of?
- Prattling is the present participle and gerund of prattle.
- What part of speech is prattling?
- Prattling is a noun.
- What is the plural of prattling?
- The plural of prattling is prattlings.
Words near prattling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prattling (page history and authors); prattle (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.
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Cite this entry: “prattling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prattling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.