Dictionary

chatterer en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Middle English cheteren, chiteren (Imitative)der. Middle English chateren English chatter English -er English chatterer From chatter + -er.

Meanings

1. A person who chatters; a chatterbox.
   • Indeed the difficulty was to get him to stop talking, for, like all squirrels, he was a chatterer. 1951, C. S. Lewis, chapter 6, in Prince Caspian, Collins, published 1998:
   • “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers,[…]the chlorotic squatters on huge yachts, the speed-mad fugitives from the furies of ennui, the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosus,[…]!” 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VI, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
   • Yes, I am a chatterer, indeed, to interrupt you so often, Monsieur. 1845, Marie Joseph Eugène Sue, The Mysteries of Paris:
2. (dated) Any of several passerine birds, mostly from South America; especially the cotingas.
   • Why is the variegated chatterer of South America also called the bell-bird? 1832, John Timbs, Knowledge for the People:
   • In most parts of tropical America we may always find some species of woodpecker[,] tanager, bush-shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan, cuckoo, and tyrant-flycatcher; and a few days' active search will produce more variety than can be here met with in as many months. 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 63:
   • The flight of the Chatterer bears much resemblance to that of the starling. 1846, Henry Leonard Meyer, Coloured illustrations of British birds and their eggs:

Forms

Deriveds

Bohemian chatterer