tattle
/ˈtætl̩/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.34 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
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.
Canadian usage; American usage; Derogatory; Intransitive verb
verb
To speak like a baby or young child; to babble, to prattle; to speak haltingly; to stutter.
Intransitive verb; Obsolete
noun
Often said of children: a piece of incriminating information or an account of wrongdoing that is said about another person.
Canadian usage; American usage; Countable; Derogatory
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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 hope the uſefulneſs of what I have to ſay on this Subject, will qualifie the remoteneſs of it; […]"
- "Nor can any Man be either wiſe or happy till he hath arrived to that greatneſs of Mind, that no more conſiders the tatling of the multitude than the whiſtling of the Wind."
- "She tattled on: first to one, then to the other—then to all, till she had tattled herself out of breath;—and then the orthodox half hour had expired, and the bell was rung, and the carriage ordered, and Mrs. Hare rose to depart."
- "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 another child and just don't know any other way to handle the problem."
- "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 me"
Etymology
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.
Word Breakdown
- Root: tatelen
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈtætl̩/
- British English: /ˈtæt(ə)l/