Word.ws English Dictionary

smalltalk

smalltalk is the alternative form of small talk.

Meaning of small talk

Noun

small talk (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Idle conversation, typically regarding innocuous or unimportant subjects, usually engaged in at social gatherings out of politeness.
    • [T]o the credit of the lady it may be added, that […] without any of the arts of flattery or the gaieties of small talk, he began to be agreeable to her.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 134

Proper noun capitalized: Smalltalk

Smalltalk

  1. An object-oriented, dynamically-typed, reflective programming language.

Origin of smalltalk

From small talk; according to Alan Kay (one of its creators): The name actually appeared before the first Smalltalk design, which was done in 1971. I had mentioned to someone that the "prose" of then current programming languages was lower than a cocktail party conversation, and that great progress would have been made if we could even get to the level of making "smalltalk". It then occured^([sic]) to me that this word was also a great pun for a language aimed at the world of small children. As for hype: Another motive for "smalltalk" was the practice at the time of naming operating, and other, systems (which hardly did anything) after mighty indo-european gods, such as Thor, Zeus, Odin, etc. I figured that if Smalltalk ever did something neat, then people would be pleasantly surprised.

Words formed from smalltalk

Questions about smalltalk

What does smalltalk mean?
Smalltalk means an object-oriented, dynamically-typed, reflective programming language.
What is smalltalk the alternative form of?
Smalltalk is the alternative form of small talk.
What part of speech is smalltalk?
Smalltalk is a proper noun.

Words near smalltalk in the dictionary

  1. smallscale
  2. smallsome
  3. smallstock
  4. smallsword
  5. smallswords
  6. smalltalk
  7. Smalltalker
  8. Smalltalkers
  9. Smallthorne
  10. smalltime
  11. smalltimer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smalltalk (page history and authors); Smalltalk (page history and authors); small talk (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: “smalltalk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smalltalk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.