Also 6 tatle: see also TITTLE-TATTLE. [f. next. Cf. LG. tätel in same sense.] The action of tattling; idle or frivolous talk; chatter, gossip.
a. 1529. Tyttel tattyll [see TITTLE-TATTLE].
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 40. Amidst other tattle, they prattled of the beautie of Samela.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 57. At Gossipings, Funeralls, at Church before Sermons, and the like opportunities of tattle.
1713. Swift, Cadenus & Van., 320. They … told the tattle of the day.
1753. trans. Mad. Maintenon’s Letters, cxciv. (12 March, 1696), 202. I have raised myself above the Tattle of this Place.
1795. Mar. Edgeworth Lett. for Lit. Ladies (1798). She shall despise the idle whisper, and the common tattle of her sex.
1869. Dixon, Tower, I. xviii. 215. All this tattle was repeated … to the Queen.
1895. C. Gore, Dissert., I. vi. 60. The reserve of the canonical and the vulgar tattle of the apocryphal Gospels.
b. with a and pl. A fit of tattling; a ‘gossip.’ Now rare.
1583. Babington, Commandm., vii. (1590), 309. The dalying tatles of these courting dayes,… and the wanton greetings in euery place now vsed.
1612. trans. Benvenuto’s Passenger, II. i. § 16. Like olde wiues tales, or tattles.
1783. Priv. Lett. Ld. Malmesbury (1870), I. 485. I understand there have been some little tattles going between us.
c. 1824. Praed, Pol. & Occ. Poems, Coronat. Chas. X. Three dukes were very nearly slain, Which would have made a tattle For many a day.
c. attrib. and Comb., as tattle-basket (cf. chatter-box), -monger.
1736. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict., II. Lingulaca,… (2) A prating gossip, a tattle-basket.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, iv. She knew … how all the tattle-mongers … watched the movements of the Snobkys with interest.
1874. Lisle Carr, Jud. Gwynne, I. ix. 272. A prosaic friendship, that has nothing in it at which the tattlemongers of this place may chatter.
1919. H. F. Day, Rider of the King Log, vii. 99. It struck me that the young tattle-mouth must have received some special information.
