pittle-pattle

English

Verb

pittle-pattle (third-person singular simple present pittle-pattles, present participle pittle-pattling, simple past and past participle pittle-pattled)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To talk unmeaningly; to chatter or prattle.
   • 1549, Hugh Latimer, “The Second Sermon of Master Hugh Latimer, which He Preached before the King’s Majesty [Edward VI], within His Grace’s Palace at Westminster, the Fifteenth Day of March, 1549. To the Reader.”, in George Elwes Corrie, editor, Sermons by Hugh Latimer, Sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr, 1555 (The Parker Society for the Publication of the Works of the Fathers and Early Writers of the Reformed English Church; 27), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] University Press, published 1844, →OCLC, page 106:

     The world and the devil hath so bewitched us, that we in our deeds, I fear me, too many of us, deny God to be God, whatsoever we pittle-pattle with our tongues.

     Modernized from the original 1549 text.

Further reading

• “pittle-pattle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.