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Webster 1828 Edition


Rattling

RAT'TLING

,
ppr.
Making a quick succession of sharp sounds.

RAT'TLING

,
Noun.
A rapid succession of sharp sounds. Nah. 3.

Definition 2024


rattling

rattling

English

Adjective

rattling (comparative more rattling, superlative most rattling)

  1. Lively, quick (speech, pace).
  2. (dated, intensifier) good, fine.
    a rattling good lunch
    • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest:
      [] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
        Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. []
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
      To say the truth, Sophia, when very young, discerned that Tom, though an idle, thoughtless, rattling rascal, was nobody's enemy but his own []
    • James Joyce
      I'd like nothing better this minute, said Mr Browne stoutly, than a rattling fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the shafts.

Noun

rattling (plural rattlings)

  1. rattle (a sound made by loose objects shaking or vibrating against one another)
  2. (nautical) Alternative form of ratline

Verb

rattling

  1. present participle of rattle