or twattle, etc., subs. (old colloquial).—1. Gabble, STUFF AND NONSENSE (q.v.); (2) a prosy chatterbox, babbler, driveller: also TWADDLER (TWATTLER, TWATTLE-BASKET, or TWATTLE-BRAINS). As verb = to clack, prate, rattle on; TWADDLING (or TWADDLEY) = (1) silly, loquacious, inane; (2) trifling, paltry, petty. Also reduplicated in TWITTLE-TWATTLE.
15[?]. The King and Miller of Mansfield [CHILD, Ballads, viii. 43]. You feed us with TWATLING dishes soe small.
1577. STANYHURST, Description of Ireland, vi. Let vs in Gods name leaue lieng for varlets, berding for ruffians, facing for crakers, chatting for TWATTLERS. Ibid. (1582), Æneis, iv. [ARBER], 101. As readye forgde fittons, as true tales vaynelye toe TWATTLE.
1634. W. WHATELY, The Redemption of Time, 25. The Apostle Paul also finds fault with a certain sort of women that were pratlers, which would go from house to house, TWATLING and babling out frothy speech that was good for nothing.
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, III. xviii. They show him the short and TWATTLE verses that were written.
c. 1660. SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Æsop, 38. It is not for Every TWATLING Gossip yet, or some Empty Pedant, presently to Undertake This Province.
d. 1691. BAXTER, A Treatise of Self-Denial, xxvii. Idle persons, that will spend whole hours together in TWATTLING and talking idly.
1719. SWIFT, To Dr. Sheridan, 14 Dec. Such a TWATTLING with you and your bottling.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Pref., vii. The favourite expressions of the day … vanish without leaving a trace behind. Such were the late fashionable words, a BORE and a TWADDLE, among the great vulgar. Ibid., s.v. BORE … much in fashion about the years 1780 and 1781.
1824. SCOTT, St. Ronan’s Well, ii. 188. The devil take the TWADDLE!… I must tip him the cold shoulder, or he will be pestering me eternally.
1830. GREVILLE, Memoirs, 4 April. The cardinals appeared a wretched set of old TWADDLERS.
1837. DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, li. You will perhaps be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this ungrammatical TWADDLER.
1849. C. KINGSLEY, Alton Locke, viii. Between conceit and disgust, fancying myself one day a great new poet, and the next a mere TWADDLER, I got … puzzled and anxious.
1853. THACKERAY, English Humourists, v. The puny cockney bookseller, pouring endless volumes of sentimental TWADDLE. Ibid. (1857–9), The Virginians, xviii. The soft youth in the good Bishop of Cambray’s TWADDLING story.
1856. C. READE, It Is Never Too Late to Mend, xxiii. An occasion for TWADDLING had come, and this good soul seized it, and TWADDLED into a man’s ear who was fainting on the rack.
1864. J. R. LOWELL, Fireside Travels, 155. To be sure, Cicero used to TWADDLE about Greek literature and philosophy, much as people do about ancient art nowadays.
1872. HELPS, Hints for Essays, in Good Words, xiii. 13. Their lucubrations seem to me to be TWADDLY.
3. (old).—Perplexity, confusion; ‘or anything else: a fashionable term that for a while succeeded that of bore’ (GROSE).
4. (old).—A diminutive person.
