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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tattle.

To chatter; to gossip.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈtæt(ə)l/Received-Pronunciation/ˈtætl̩/General-American[-æɾl̩]General-American
  1. To chatter; to gossip.

    intransitive
  2. Often said of children: to report incriminating information about another person, or a person's wrongdoing in an annoying fashion, usually to a person in a position of authority over the accused person; to tell on somebody.

    Canada · US · derogatory · intransitive
  3. To speak like a baby or young child; to babble, to prattle; to speak haltingly; to stutter.

    intransitive · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to babble, chatter”) (modern Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to talk, chatter”)), originally imitative. The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian tätelje (“to talk nonsense, babble”), Middle Low German tāteren, tadderen (“to babble, chatter”) (whence modern German Low German tatern (“to chatter”)), Low German tateln, täteln (“to cackle, gabble”). Compare also Middle English dadel, dadull (“tattling, gossip”), and its alteration twaddle.

noun/ˈtæt(ə)l/Received-Pronunciation/ˈtætl̩/General-American[-æɾl̩]General-American
  1. A tattletale.

    countable
  2. Often said of children: a piece of incriminating information or an account of wrongdoing that is said about another person.

    Canada · US · countable · derogatory
  3. Idle talk; gossip; (countable) an instance of such talk or gossip.

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to babble, chatter”) (modern Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to talk, chatter”)), originally imitative. The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian tätelje (“to talk nonsense, babble”), Middle Low German tāteren, tadderen (“to babble, chatter”) (whence modern German Low German tatern (“to chatter”)), Low German tateln, täteln (“to cackle, gabble”). Compare also Middle English dadel, dadull (“tattling, gossip”), and its alteration twaddle.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.