chatter

CEFRB1

/ˈtʃætə/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To talk quickly and continuously about unimportant things.

  2. 02

    noun

    Quick, continuous talk about unimportant things.

Examples

  • They only wrote idle chatter about her in the newspaper.

  • Her continuous chatter vexes me.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. The sound of talking.

  2. The vocalisations of a Eurasian magpie, Pica pica.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. Talk, especially meaningless or unimportant talk.

More examples

In context

  • I'm fed up with her chatter.

  • Proper brake adjustment will help to reduce the chatter.

  • The NSA is concerned about increased chatter between known terror groups.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The constant blank of the students made it hard for the teacher to speak.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

From Middle English chateren, from earlier cheteren, chiteren (“to twitter, chatter, jabber”), of imitative origin. Compare Saterland Frisian tjoaterje (“to chatter”), West Frisian tsjotterje (“to chatter”), Dutch schateren, schetteren (“chatter”), Dutch koeteren (“jabber”), Middle Low German kidderen (“to chatter”), German Low German queteln (“to chatter”), dialectal German kaudern (“to gobble (like a turkey)”), Danish kvidre (“to twitter, chirp”).