chatter

Everyday

1. To chatter is to talk quickly and a lot about small, unimportant things. tree →
2. When your teeth chatter, they knock together because you are very cold or scared. tree →
3. Birds and monkeys chatter when they make quick, repeated high sounds. tree →
4. Chatter is the sound of people or animals chattering. tree →

In the lessons

In school, «Stop chattering!» means stop talking in class. In science about the body, teeth chattering is shivering that helps warm you up. In stories, chatter fills busy places like the playground or a café; «idle chatter» means unimportant talk.

Examples

• The girls chattered all the way home. tree →
• Stop chattering and listen, please. tree →
• My teeth were chattering in the freezing sea. tree →
• Monkeys chattered in the trees. tree →
• The classroom was full of happy chatter. tree →
• Magpies chatter loudly in the garden. tree →
• There was lots of chatter about the new teacher. tree →
• The nobleman was wet to the skin, and his teeth chattered. tree →

Note

Regular verb: chattered. Uncountable noun: «a lot of chatter», not «chatters». Similar: babble, natter (UK), chat. «Chatterbox» is a friendly word for someone who talks a lot.

In Jewish tradition

Here it means a thin, weak bird-like sound made by a sick and sorrowing person.

Interpretation. King Hezekiah, ill and afraid, likens his crying to the sounds of birds. Tradition reads his prayer as a model of honest pleading to God in distress.

Examples

• Like a swallow or a crane, so do I chatter, I do moan as a dove; mine eyes fail with looking upward. (Prophets ISA.38.14, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

Regular verb: chattered. Uncountable noun: «a lot of chatter», not «chatters». Similar: babble, natter (UK), chat. «Chatterbox» is a friendly word for someone who talks a lot.