verb. (old colloquial).—To chatter, babble, tattle. Hence TWITTLE-TWAT = a chatterbox; TWITTLE-TWATTLE = gabble, idle talk.
1582. STANYHURST, Æneis [ARBER], Introduction, xi. His hystorie … TWITLED more tales out of schoole.
1619. HOLLAND, Plutarch, 85. All that ever he did was not worth so much as the TWITTLE-TWATTLE that he maketh.
1660. SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Æsop, The Preface. There are twenty insipid TWITTLE-TWATTLES, frothy jests, and jingling witticisms, that look, as if they had no hurt in them; and yet the wonting of us to the use and liking of these levities, leads, and inures us to a mis-understanding of things, that’s no less dangerous then a corruptions of manners.
1660. Rump Songs, i. 52.
| Next come those idle TWITTLE-TWATS, | |
| Which calls me many God-knows-whats. |
