tattle
Syllables: tat·tleUK/ˈtæt(ə)l/US/ˈtætl̩/
tattle verb: to chatter; to gossip.
Verb
tattle (third-person singular simple present tattles, present participle tattling, simple past and past participle tattled)
- To chatter; to gossip.
- He were an excellent man that were made iuſt in the mid-way between him and Benedick, the one is too like an image and ſaies nothing, and the other too like my ladies eldeſt ſonne, euermore tatling.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II...
- By this time, My Lord, I doubt not but that you wonder, why I have run off from my Biaſs ſo long together, and made ſo tedious a Digreſſion from Satire to Heroique Poetry. But if You will not excuſe it, by the tattling Quality of Age, which, as Sir William Davenant ſays, is always Narrative; yet I...1693, John Dryden, “[The Dedication]”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson...
- Synonyms:
- prattle
- Often said of children: to report incriminating information about another person, or a person's wrongdoing in an annoying fashion, usually to a person in a position of authority over the accused person; to tell on somebody.
- There are some children who just like to talk about others. They are not reporting. They are tattling, telling one negative after another. Their goal is to get others in trouble. […] Children sometimes do not mean to tattle about someone else. They do it because they are having a problem with...2009, Maryln Appelbaum, “How to Handle Children Who are Disruptive”, in How to Handle Hard-to-handle Preschoolers: A Guide for Early Childhood Educators, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, SAGE...
- I trapped the girls inside their tent / Someone tattled on me / Put a frog in the bathroom vent / Someone tattled on me / Gave my dinner to a bear / Put a snake in Auntie's chair / And a tick in Gramp's rootbeer / Someone tattled on me2009, Renee Gregory, “I’m Gettin’ Broccoli for Dinner”, in Bugs, Bears and S’mores: Songs of the Great Outdoors, Pittsburgh, Pa.: RoseDog Books, →ISBN, page 100
- Synonyms:
- rat out
- To speak like a baby or young child; to babble, to prattle; to speak haltingly; to stutter.
- But who can give to his leasing a conclusion, and pronounce it without tatelying, like as it were written tofore him, and that he can so blind the people that his leasing shall better be believed than the truth: that is the man.1481, “The History of Reynard the Fox”, in William Caxton, transl., edited by Henry Morley, Early Prose Romances: […] (The Carisbrooke Library; IV), London: George Routledge and Sons, […], published...
Noun
tattle (countable and uncountable, plural tattles)
- A tattletale.
- We agree on almost nothing, everything is a battle / Every secret from him is kept, his rep is being a tattle2015, K. L. Philpotts, “Little Bro”, in The Chocolate Chip Cookie Tree: A Collection of Poems and Illustrations, Denver, Colo.: Outskirts Press, →ISBN, page 23
- Synonyms:
- telltale tit
- Often said of children: a piece of incriminating information or an account of wrongdoing that is said about another person.
- Have a special small bucket called the tattle bucket. Make name cards for each child. […] When children have a tattle, instead of disrupting the class, they get their name card and put it in the tattle bucket. Look in the bucket at varying times during the day. If you see a name card, go to the...2009, Maryln Appelbaum, “How to Handle Children Who are Disruptive”, in How to Handle Hard-to-handle Preschoolers: A Guide for Early Childhood Educators, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, SAGE...
- Idle talk; gossip; (countable) an instance of such talk or gossip.
- Prattles and Tattles, / O'er Bottles, / Shall ſtill cheriſh my Fancy, / Better, and ſweeter, / And greater, / Than dull Tea with Nancy.1719, T[homas] d’Urfey, “The Toper. The Jolly Toper, that wont Leave His Bottle to Get the Best Wife in Christendom.”, in Wit and Mirth: Or Pills to Purge Melancholy; […], volume II, London: Printed...
- But, as ill tongues are never wanting to disturb the repose of honest families, there was such a tattle about my wife going to dress the corregidor's victuals, make his bed, and the like, that all the town rang of it.1876, anonymous [Diego Hurtado de Mendoza?], chapter XX, in The Spanish Comic Novel, Lazarillo de Tormes, Glasgow: John Calder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 43
tattle meaning in Urdu, Malayalam, Vietnamese and Myanmar
tattle in Urdu
- گپ, بکواس کرنا, گپ مارنا
tattle in Malayalam
- ജല്പനം, ചിലയ്ക്കൽ
tattle in Vietnamese
- to report incriminating information or wrongdoing
- hớt
tattle in Myanmar
- idle talk; gossip
- အတင်း a.tang:
Examples of tattle in a sentence
- Their goal is to get others in trouble. […] Children sometimes do not mean to tattle about someone else.2009, Maryln Appelbaum, “How to Handle Children Who are Disruptive”, in How to Handle Hard-to-handle Preschoolers: A Guide for Early...
- She also frequently "tattles" on other students.2015, Deanne A. Crone, Leanne S. Hawken, Robert H. Horner, “Conducting a Functional Behavioral Assessment”, in Building Positive Behavior...
- Have a special small bucket called the tattle bucket.2009, Maryln Appelbaum, “How to Handle Children Who are Disruptive”, in How to Handle Hard-to-handle Preschoolers: A Guide for Early...
Synonyms of tattle
7 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of tattle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | tattles |
| present participle | tattling |
| past participle | tattled |
| past | tattled |
| Noun | |
| plural | tattles |
Origin of tattle
From Middle Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to babble, chatter”) (modern Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to talk, chatter”)), originally imitative. The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian tätelje (“to talk nonsense, babble”), Middle Low German tāteren, tadderen (“to babble, chatter”) (whence modern German Low German tatern (“to chatter”)), Low German tateln, täteln (“to cackle, gabble”). Compare also Middle English dadel, dadull (“tattling, gossip”), and its alteration twaddle.
Words formed from tattle
Phrases with tattle
Words that rhyme with tattle
Questions about tattle
- What does tattle mean?
- Tattle means to chatter; to gossip.
- What is tattle in Urdu?
- Tattle in Urdu is گپ, بکواس کرنا, گپ مارنا. See Tattle meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use tattle in a sentence?
- Their goal is to get others in trouble. […] Children sometimes do not mean to tattle about someone else.
- What part of speech is tattle?
- Tattle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce tattle?
- Tattle is pronounced /ˈtæt(ə)l/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of tattle?
- The past tense of tattle is tattled.
Words near tattle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tattle (page history and authors); tattle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tattle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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-au-tattle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tattle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tattle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.