Also 6 tatyllar, 6–9 tatler. [Agent-n. f. TATTLE v. + -ER1. So LG. täteler.]
1. One who tattles; an idle talker, a chatterer; a gossip; a talebearer, telltale.
1550. Crowley, Last Trump., 1609. Vaine tatyllars, That do vse false rumoures to sowe.
1611. Bible, 1 Tim. v. 13. Not onely idle, but tatlers also, and busibodies, speaking things which they ought not.
1682. Bunyan, Holy War, xi. (Cassell), 249. Mr. Prywell … a sober and judicious man, a man that is no tattler, nor raiser of false reports.
1781. Cowper, Friendship, xvii. Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers, will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women, & Bks., II. x. 252. As great and scandalous a tattler as anybody.
2. slang. A striking watch, a repeater; a watch in general.
1688. Shadwell, Sqr. Alsatia, II. Wks. 1726, IV. 47. Here’s a Tatler, gold, all gold, you rogue.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Tattler, an Alarm, or Striking Watch, or (indeed) any.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scot., viii. (1855), 85. He carries his ‘tatler’ in the waistband of his unmentionables.
3. Ornith. Any of the sandpipers of the genus Totanus or subfamily Totaninæ; so called from their vociferous cry.
1831. Richardson & Swainson, Faun. Bor.-Amer., II. 388. Totanus semipalmatus (Temm.), Semipalmated Tatler.
1872. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 250. The Terekia cinerea … stands between the godwits and tattlers.
1892. A. E. Lee, Hist. Columbus (Ohio), I. 17, note. Yellow-legged snipe, or tattler,… common in autumn on western rivers.
So Tattlery (rare–0), ‘idle talk or chat’ (Webster, 1847).
