1 Definition
To talk at length in a chatty, foolish, or meaningless way.
2 In Use
She prattled happily about her neighbor's hedges for twenty minutes while the coffee went cold.
3 Word Origin
praten M.L.Ger. · to talk, chatter → pratelen M.L.Ger. · to babble repeatedly → prattle 16th c. English
Prattle comes from the Low German side of the Germanic family, where a short, sturdy verb for talking was stretched into a form that meant talking over and over. That repeated, rippling ending gave the word its sense of ceaseless small talk rather than a single remark. English borrowed it in the 1500s, and it has stayed close to that original flavor: speech that flows freely but carries little weight.
💡Fun Fact
Prattle has always lived on both sides of the nursery door. It describes the happy babble of small children just as readily as it describes an adult who cannot stop talking about nothing. A close cousin, prate, shares the same root and means to chatter on at tiresome length. Despite the resemblance, the word pratfall belongs to a different family entirely, since it comes from old slang for the backside.
