Word.ws English Dictionary

watchman's rattle

watchman's rattle noun: an instrument, with a vibrating tongue fixed in a frame, which slips over the teeth of a ratchet wheel and produces a loud raucous sound when whirled around, once used by watchmen to warn of danger.

Noun

watchman's rattle (plural watchman's rattles or watchmen's rattles)

  1. An instrument, with a vibrating tongue fixed in a frame, which slips over the teeth of a ratchet wheel and produces a loud raucous sound when whirled around, once used by watchmen to warn of danger
    Synonyms:
    fiddle

Synonyms of watchman's rattle

Forms of watchman's rattle

pluralwatchman's rattles
pluralwatchmen's rattles

Questions about watchman's rattle

What does watchman's rattle mean?
Watchman's rattle means an instrument, with a vibrating tongue fixed in a frame, which slips over the teeth of a ratchet wheel and produces a loud raucous sound when whirled around, once used by watchmen to warn of danger.
What part of speech is watchman's rattle?
Watchman's rattle is a noun.
What is the plural of watchman's rattle?
The plural of watchman's rattle is watchman's rattles.

Words near watchman's rattle in the dictionary

  1. watchmakers
  2. watchmaking
  3. watchman
  4. watchman's clock
  5. watchman's detector
  6. watchman's rattle
  7. watchman's rattles
  8. watchman's time detector
  9. watchmanly
  10. Watchmans
  11. watchmanship

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: watchman's rattle (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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