Comparetattle,twaddle.
twattle (third-person singular simple presenttwattles,present participletwattling,simple past and past participletwattled)
- (archaic, ambitransitive) Totalk in adigressive orlong-winded way.
1671, Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle,Natures Pictures drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life, page181:After all, she objected, Do not Men run visiting from House to House, for no other purpose but totwattle, spending their time in idle and fruitless discourse?
1692,Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, inFables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […],→OCLC:Tis very well, Mistress, says he, and are you not a fine Gossiping Lady, do you think, totwattle your Husband thus out of his Life and Fortune?
1858 January, “Dr. Wordsworth's Greek Testament”, inBibliotheca sacra: a theological quarterly, volume15, number 5, page248:He now and thentwattles a little , as an old gentleman may when lamenting the degeneracy of the evil times on which his gray hairs have fallen; but his Introductions and Notes are always gravely entertaining, and generally learnedly instructive.
1860 May, “Literary Notices: Doctor Oldham at Greystones, and His Talk There”, inThe Knickerbocker, volume55, number 5, page528:He has no story to tell, it is true, but is eminently readable, for he writes most forcible, idiomatic English, is never dull in his didactics, nevertwattles, is learned without pedantry, and although the topics treated are so diverse, yet there is a natural consecutiveness from first to last, and no abrupt transition.
twattle (countable anduncountable,pluraltwattles)
- (archaic) Chatter; twaddle.
1850 May, “Unjust Personalities”, inThe American Journal of Homœopathy, volume 5, number 1, page11:Continue, if you choose, yourtwattle against Homœopathy; distort it, misinterpret it, calumniate and deride its author; the unprejudiced legions will soon be able to decide on which side is the truth.
1860, Hezekiah Lord Hosmer,Adela, the Octoroon, page91:It concedes too much to you Northern fellows; and all the old man said about magnanimity was meretwattle.
1876 January, Francis Gerry Fairfield, “An Unconventional View of Herbert Spencer”, inPhrenological Journal, volume65, number 1:The penetrating power of that saying might atone for pages oftwattle, and Carlyle has flashes of such tremendous insight as is only given to masters in literature.
1970, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie Wharncliffe (1st Baron), William Moy Thomas,The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, page500:The lies,twattles, and contrivances about this affair, are innumerable.
Unknown.
twattle (third-person singular simple presenttwattles,present participletwattling,simple past and past participletwattled)
- (archaic, transitive) Tocosset; topet orcoddle.
1675, John Dryden,The Mistaken Husband:Never fear her, I warrant you, she that will ask for a weapon is not desperate; get you gone in to her, andtwattle her out of the sullens if you can; if not, I'le not long be absent.
1884 October 15, “Song”, inThe Hull Quarterly and East Riding Portfolio, volume 1, number 4, page155:For se waik an' se silly, an' helpless was I, I was always a tumbling down then, While me mother wouldtwattle me gently, and cry Honey Jenny: tak' care o' thysen.
1911, Richard Blakeborough,Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire, page484:Thootwattles on wi ' ť pup ez if ' t wur a bairn.
twattle (pluraltwattles)
- (archaic) Adwarf.
1598, John Florio,A Worlde of Wordes, page486:PIGMEO, a pigmey, a kinde of little man like a dwarfe, a dandiprat, atwattle, or an elfe. Some thinke that they be but a kind of spirits ingendred of the corruption of the earth, even as the Scarab is bread of horses doung.
2016, Shirley McKay,1588: A Calendar of Crime:She had telt him, indignant, 'I am not ten.' 'No? An uncomelytwattle, are ye no?' 'Atwattle?' she had said. 'A mimmerkin. A dwarf.'
