Chiefly Sc. Obs. Forms: 5 tratyll, -el, -ill, tratle, 6 trattil, -ill, -yll, 6, 8 trattle; also pres. pple. 5 tratlyng, 5–6 Sc. tratland, pres. pple. and gerund 6–7 tratling; pa. t. 6 Sc. tratlit. [app. related in some way to TATTLE, but actually found earlier, and not in the sense ‘stammer,’ in which tattle was first used. Probably echoic.] intr. and trans. To talk idly; to chatter, gossip.
a. 1400. [see TRATTLING vbl. sb.].
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VII. x. 3454. Ye rawe [= rave], & tratelys [v.r. tratlys] all foly.
1508. Kennedie, Flyting w. Dunbar, 313. Sen thow on me thus, lymmer, leis and trattillis.
a. 1555. Bp. Gardiner, in Foxe, A. & M. (1563), 751. Ouer grosse opinions, to enter into your learned head, whatsoeuer the vnlearned woulde trattle.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 107. He … vsed to trattle and talke more than ynough.
a. 1592. Greene, Jas. IV., Induct. Many circumstances too long to trattle on now.
a. 1800. Earl Richard, v., in Child, Ballads (1885), III. 152/1. Better … Than thou canst keep thy clattering toung, That trattles in thy head.
