English

Verb

lallate ‎(third-person singular simple present lallates, present participle lallating, simple past and past participle lallated)

1. speaking while pronouncing the letters "r" so that they sound like "l"
2. speaking like a baby
   • 2008, Clive Hazell, The Room

     " […] he was pulled in by the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of Isabel and Rosalinda burbling and lallating together."

   • 2014, David Foster Wallace, The David Foster Wallace Reader

     " […] the therapist would start tiresomely lallating over and over and over again what her therapeutic philosophies and goals and wishes for the depressed person were […] "

   • 2014, William Roetzheim, The Giant Book of Poetry

     "Meanwhile I go on
     troweling, slavering the world with language
     as Jake squeals
     like a held bird and begins lallating to me in tongues."

Related terms

• lallation