the.com/prattler
Someone who talks the way puppies chew — constantly, aimlessly, on everything within reach.
means A person who chatters on and on about trivial things, often without saying much of substance.
from From 'prattle,' which popped up in the 1500s as a frequentative form of 'prate' — that is, 'prate' plus a suffix implying repeated, small-scale action, the same pattern you see in 'babble' or 'wobble.' 'Prate' itself is probably related to Low German and Dutch words for chattering or gossiping, likely echoic in origin — meaning it may have been coined to imitate the very sound of idle talk. So a prattler is, by the word's own built-in logic, someone doing a little version of empty talk, over and over.
- origin
- from Dutch pratelen, to chatter idly
- key trait
- volume of words, not value
- related species
- cousin to the blabbermouth and windbag
- fatal flaw
- mistakes talking for thinking