rattling

English

Etymology 1

Adjective

rattling (comparative more rattling, superlative most rattling)

1. Lively, quick (speech, pace).
2. (dated, intensifier) good, fine.

   a rattling good lunch

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     “ […] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
       Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […] ”

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     To say the truth, Sophia, when very young, discerned that Tom, though an idle, thoughtless, rattling rascal, was nobody's enemy but his own […]

   • 1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “The Dead”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC:

     I'd like nothing better this minute, said Mr Browne stoutly, than a rattling fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the shafts.

Verb

rattling

1. present participle and gerund of rattle

Noun

rattling (plural rattlings)

1. rattle (a sound made by loose objects shaking or vibrating against one another)

Translations

a sound made by loose object shaking against one another

• German: Rasseln (de) n, Gerassel (de) n, Klappern (de) n, Geklapper (de) n
• Latin: crepitus m

Etymology 2

Noun

rattling (plural rattlings)

1. (nautical) Alternative form of ratline