tittle-tattle en · NOUN
Etymology
Reduplication of tattle.
Meanings
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(uncountable) Petty, idle gossip.
Every idle Tittle-tattle that went about, Jack was always ſuſpected for the author of it: […]
1733, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], Alexander Pope, compiler, “Law is a Bottomless Pit. Or, The History of John Bull. […]. The Second Part. Chapter XI.”, in Miscellanies, 2nd edition, volume II, London: […] Benjamin Motte, […], →OCLC, page 114:And, when rumours about him surfaced in the form of insinuating magazine articles demanding to know why he hadn’t found a wife yet, his wily agent Henry Willson made sure that none of them stuck, even if it meant leaking tittle-tattle about other clients instead.
2023 October 6, Ryan Gilbey, “The double life of Rock Hudson: ‘Let’s be frank, he was a horndog!’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:She has trouble enough on her hands, with the affairs of that silly young scapegrace, without being pestered by the tittle-tattle of this place. It is all an invention of that fool, Fribsby.
1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 16, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
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(countable, uncountable) An idle, trifling talker; a gossip.
If I can once extirpate the race of solid and substantial humdrums, I hope by my wholesome and repeated advices, quickly to reduce the insignificant tittle-tattles and matter-of-fact-men that abound in every quarter of this great city.
1777, The Tatler; Or, Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq, volume 4, Dublin: W. Whitestone, W. Watson, J. Williams, W. Wilson, edition of The Tatler n° 268 (1710) by Richard Steele, page 324:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| tittle-tattles | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Translations (10)
nb sladder (idle gossip) · ga suainseán (idle gossip) · bg празни приказки (idle gossip) · da sladder (idle gossip) · nb slarv (idle gossip) · mi tūtara (idle gossip) · fr cancans (idle gossip) · af skinderstorie (idle gossip) · la sermunculus (idle gossip) · mi pōtinitini (idle gossip)