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prate
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Etymology
From Middle English praten; either inherited from Old English prætt or borrowed via Middle Dutch or Middle Low German praten (from Old Saxon *pratt), all from Proto-West Germanic *prattu, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *prattuz (“idle or boastful talk, deceit”), from Proto-Indo-European *bred- (“to wander, rove”).
Related to Dutch praten (“to talk, chat”), Low German praten, dated German pfrassen, Danish prate, Swedish prata (“to talk, prate”), Faroese práta (“to talk, gossip”), Icelandic prata;; also cognate with Polish bredzić (“to rave, jabber”), Latvian bradāt (“to talk nonsense”).
Pronunciation
Noun
prate (countable and uncountable, plural prates)
Derived terms
Translations
talk to little purpose
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Verb
prate (third-person singular simple present prates, present participle prating, simple past and past participle prated)
- (ambitransitive) To talk much and to little purpose; to be loquacious; to speak foolishly.
- Synonyms: blabber; see also Thesaurus:prattle, Thesaurus:chatter
- c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 136, column 1:
- Thou ſowre and firme-ſet Earth / Heare not my ſteps, which they may walke, for feare / Thy very ſtones prate of my where-about, / And take the preſent horror from the time, / Which now ſutes with it.
- 1697, Virgil, “Pastorl 3”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- What nonsense would the fool, thy master, prate, / When thou, his knave, canst talk at such a rate!
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXVII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 57:
- Urania speaks with darken’d brow:
‘Thou pratest here where thou art least;
This faith has many a purer priest,
And many an abler voice than thou: […] ’
- 1976 June 7, Nik Cohn, “Inside the Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night”, in New York Magazine:
- They are not so chic, these kids. They don’t haunt press receptions or opening nights; they don’t pose as street punks in the style of Bruce Springsteen, or prate of rock & Rimbaud.
- 1999 February 19, Stephen Holden, “'Office Space': One Big Happy Family? No, Not at This Company”, in New York Times:
- Puffed up with fake jocularity, Bill epitomizes the smiley, buck-passing, back-stabbing, passive-aggressive office dictator who fears and despises his underlings while prating nauseatingly about everybody being one big happy family.
Derived terms
Translations
to talk much, to chatter
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References
- prate, in Compact Oxford English Dictionary.
- prate, in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.
Anagrams
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Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio: (file)
Verb
prate
Anagrams
Norwegian Bokmål
Etymology
From Middle Low German praten, compare Swedish prata and Faroese práta.
Pronunciation
Verb
prate (imperative prat, present tense prater, passive prates, simple past and past participle prata or pratet, present participle pratende)
Derived terms
References
- “prate” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Serbo-Croatian
Verb
prate (Cyrillic spelling прате)
West Frisian
Etymology
From Old Frisian *prat, from Proto-West Germanic *prattu, from or related to Proto-Germanic *prattuz (“boastful talk”).
Pronunciation
Verb
prate
- to talk
- 1991, Froukje Annema, Mei in fleurich sin, Friese Pers Boekerij, →ISBN, page 81:
- Sy praten drok oer de fakânsjes.
- They were talking excitedly about the holidays.
Inflection
Further reading
- “prate”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
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