tattle
Plural: tattles
Noun
- disclosing information or giving evidence about another
- A tattletale.
- Often said of children: a piece of incriminating information or an account of wrongdoing that is said about another person.
- Idle talk; gossip; (countable) an instance of such talk or gossip.
Verb
Verb Forms: tattled, tattling, tattles
- To reveal secrets or the activities of another person.
- speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly
- divulge confidential information or secrets
- To chatter; to gossip.
- 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.
- To speak like a baby or young child; to babble, to prattle; to speak haltingly; to stutter.
Examples
- The tile distribution would tattle on my strategic intentions if I wasn’t careful.
Origin / 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.
Synonyms
babble, babble out, blab, blab out, blabber, chatter, clack, gabble, gibber, let the cat out of the bag, maunder, palaver, peach, piffle, prate, prattle, sing, singing, spill the beans, talk, telling, tittle-tattle, twaddle, clatfart, goss, gossip, gossiper, gossipry, informant, labrish, rat out, scuttlebutt, skeet, tale, tattle, telltale tit, tidbit, twittle-twattle
Antonyms
keep quiet
Scrabble Score: 6
tattle: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordtattle: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
tattle: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary