tattle (tatl)

[ Thus does the old gentleman [Hesiod] give himself up to a loose kind of tattle , rather than endeavour after a just poetical description. Add is on, On Virgil's Georgics. =Syn. Chatter , Babble , etc. See prattle. tattle ment (tat'l-ment), n. [ tattle + -ment .] Tattle; chatter. [Rare.] Poor little Lilias Baillie: tottering about there, with her foolish glad tattle ment. Carlyle, Baillie the Covenanter. tattler (tat'ler), n. [Formerly also tatler (as in the name of the famous periodical, "The Tatler," of Steele and Add is on (1709-11), meant in the sense of 'the idle talker, the go ip'); IMG:content-2894.png:[blocks in formation] Cowper , Friendship, 1. 98. 2. Dilapidated; showing gaps or breaks; jag- 2. In ornith., a bird of the family Scolopacidæ ged; broken. His syre a soutere y-suled [sullied] in grees, His teeth with toylinge [pulling) of lether tatered as a sawe! Piers Plowman's Crede (E. E. T. S.), 1. 753. I do not like ruined, tattered cottages. Jane Austen , Sense and Sensibility, xviii. 3. Dre ed in tatters or rags; ragged. A hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping. Shak., 1 Hen. IV., iv. 2. 37. tatter wallop (tat'er-wol-op), n. [ tatter1 + wallop, 'boil,' used figuratively, 'flutter' (?).] Tatters; rags in a fluttering state. [Scotch.] tattery (tat'er-i), a. [= Icel. tötrugr = LG. tattrig ; as tatter1 + -y1.] Abounding in tatters; very ragged. IMG:content-2895.png:[blocks in formation] appearance the gimp laces or knotted laces of the sixteenth century, and used for doilies, collars, trimmings, etc. How our fathers managed without crochet is a wonder; but I believe some small and feeble substitute existed in their time under the name of tatting . George Eliot, Janet's Repentance, iii. 2. The act of making such lace. tatting2 (tat'ing), n. [A corruption of tatty2, suggested by matting1.] Same as tatty2. tatting-shuttle (tat'ing-shut"1), n. A shuttle used in making tatting. tattle (tat'l), v.; pret. and pp. tattled, ppr. tat tling. [ME. * tatelen ( G. tattern, prattle), etc.: see tatter2. Cf. tittle1.] I. in trans. 1. To prate; talk idly; use many words with little meaning; prattle; chatter; chat. When the babe shall begin to tattle and call hir Mamma. Lyly , Euphues (ed. Arber), p. 129. I pray hold on your Resolution to be here the next Term, that we may tattle a little of Tom Thumb. Howell , Letters, ii. 3. When you stop to tattle with some crony servant in the same street, leave your own street-door open. Swift , Advice to Servants (General Directions). and genus Totanus in a broad sense; one of the Totaneæ; a horseman or gambet: so called from the vociferous cries of most of these birds. Wandering Tattler ( Heteros cel us in can us). There are many species, of several genera, of all parts of the world; and some are noted for their extensive dispersion, as the wandering tattler of various coasts and is lands of the Pacific. The word chiefly those tattlers which are well known in English-speaking countries have other vernacular names, as yellowlegs, yellow shank, redshank, greenshank, willet; and some of them are called sandpipers, with or without qualifying terms. See the distinctive names (with various cuts), and also Scolopacidæ, sandpiper, snipe, Totanus, and cuts under greenshank, redshank, Rhy a cop hilus, ruff, Tringoides, Tryn gites, willet, and yellowlegs.