prate

From Middle English praten; related to Dutch praten (“to talk, chat”), Low German praten, Danish prate, Swedish prata (“to talk, prate”), Faroese práta (“to talk, gossip”), Icelandic prata; all ultimately from Proto-Germanic *prattuz (“idle or boastful talk, deceit”), from Proto-Indo-European *brodno- (“to wander, rove”). Cognate with Polish bredzić (“to rave, jabber”), Latvian bradāt (“to talk nonsense”).

• IPA^(key): /pɹeɪt/

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• Rhymes: -eɪt

prate (countable and uncountable, plural prates)

1. Talk to little purpose; trifling talk; unmeaningful loquacity.

   Synonyms: waffle, babble

prate (third-person singular simple present prates, present participle prating, simple past and past participle prated)

1. (transitive, intransitive) 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!

   • 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.

• prate, in Compact Oxford English Dictionary.
• prate, in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.

• Peart, Petra, apert, apter, parte, pater, peart, petar, petra, preta, reapt, repat, retap, taper, trape, treap

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prate

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of praten

• pater

• IPA^(key): /prɑːtɛ/

From Middle Low German praten, compare Swedish prata and Faroese práta.

prate (imperative prat, present tense prater, passive prates, simple past and past participle prata or pratet, present participle pratende)

1. to chat (om / about)

• pratsom

• “prate” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /ˈpraːtə/

prate

1. to talk

• “prate”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011