tittle-tattle

English

Etymology

Reduplication of tattle.

Noun

tittle-tattle (countable and uncountable, plural tittle-tattles)

1. (uncountable) Petty, idle gossip.
   • 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:

     Every idle Tittle-tattle that went about, Jack was always ſuſpected for the author of it: […]

   • 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:

     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.

   • 2023 October 6, Ryan Gilbey, “The double life of Rock Hudson: ‘Let’s be frank, he was a horndog!’”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.

2. An idle, trifling talker; a gossip.
   • 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:

     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.

Translations

idle gossip

• Bulgarian: празни приказки f pl (prazni prikazki)
• Danish: sladder c
• French: cancans (fr)
• Irish: suainseán m
• Latin: sermunculus m
• Maori: pōtinitini, tūtara
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: slarv n, sladder (no) m

Verb

tittle-tattle (third-person singular simple present tittle-tattles, present participle tittle-tattling, simple past and past participle tittle-tattled)

1. To engage in gossip.
   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     ‘I hope you two have been mewed in with that old pussy long enough. While you’ve been tittle-tattling I’ve been doing, — listen to what this bobby’s got to say.’

2. To spread gossip.