Word.ws English Dictionary

talking turkey

talking turkey is the present participle and gerund of talk turkey.

Meaning of talk turkey

Verb

talk turkey (third-person singular simple present talks turkey, present participle talking turkey, simple past and past participle talked turkey)

  1. (US, idiomatic) To talk or negotiate plainly, frankly, or seriously.
    • An Erie car loaded with live turkeys . . . was delivered to the New-York and New-England Railroad yesterday. . . . This first cargo is symbolical of the fact that they will be able hereafter to "talk turkey" to all competitors for New-England business.1881 December 13, “The Erie to ‘Talk Turkey’”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Oct 2008, page 8

Questions about talking turkey

What is talking turkey the present participle and gerund of?
Talking turkey is the present participle and gerund of talk turkey.

Words near talking turkey in the dictionary

  1. talking to the fist
  2. talking to the hand
  3. talking tos
  4. talking trash
  5. talking truth to power
  6. talking turkey
  7. talking up
  8. talking-drummer
  9. talking-drummers
  10. talking-point
  11. talking-points

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: talking turkey (page history and authors); talk turkey (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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