prate

/preɪt/

Other forms: prating; prated; prates

To prate means to talk on and on about something. While it may be interesting to hear about other people’s vacations, when they prate about them until the wee hours, it becomes intolerable.

There are more than a few instances where the famous have discouraged prating. Nursing great Clara Barton discouraged prating about “moral influences” when she encouraged a cigarette and a good, stiff glass of whiskey for Civil War soldiers. Herman Melville warned against mocking a lover’s wounded heart, saying “the stabbed man knows the steel; prate not to him that it is only a tickling feather.”

Definitions of prate

1. verb

   speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly
   synonyms: blab, blabber, chatter, clack, gabble, gibber, maunder, palaver, piffle, prattle, tattle, tittle-tattle, twaddle, yammer

   types:

   babble, blather, blether, blither, smatter

   talk foolishly

   type of:

   mouth, speak, talk, utter, verbalise, verbalize

   express in speech
2. noun

   idle or foolish and irrelevant talk
   synonyms: blether, chin music, idle talk, prattle

   type of:

   cackle, chatter, yack, yak, yakety-yak

   noisy talk