tattler
(ˈtætlə(r))
Also 6 tatyllar, 6–9 tatler.
[Agent-n. f. tattle v. + -er1. So LG. täteler.]
1. One who tattles; an idle talker, a chatterer; a gossip; a talebearer, telltale.
| 1550 Crowley Last Trump. 1609 Vaine tatyllars, That do vse false rumoures to sowe. 1611 Bible 1 Tim. v. 13 Not onely idle, but tatlers also, and busibodies, speaking things which they ought not. 1682 Bunyan Holy War xi. (Cassell) 249 Mr. Prywell..a sober and judicious man, a man that is no tattler, nor raiser of false reports. 1781 Cowper Friendship xvii, Whoever keeps an open ear For tattlers, will be sure to hear The trumpet of contention. 1847 L. Hunt Men, Women, & Bks. II. x. 252 As great and scandalous a tattler as anybody. |
2. slang. A striking watch, a repeater; a watch in general.
| 1688 Shadwell Sqr. Alsatia ii. Wks. 1726 IV. 47 Here's a Tatler, gold, all gold, you rogue. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Tattler, an Alarm, or Striking Watch, or (indeed) any. 1844 W. H. Maxwell Sports & Adv. Scot. viii. (1855) 85 He carries his ‘tatler’ in the waistband of his unmentionables. |
3. Ornith. Any of the sandpipers of the genus Totanus or subfamily Totaninæ; so called from their vociferous cry.
| 1831 Richardson & Swainson Faun. Bor.-Amer. II. 388 Totanus semipalmatus (Temm.), Semipalmated Tatler. 1872 Coues N. Amer. Birds 250 The Terekia cinerea..stands between the godwits and tattlers. 1892 A. E. Lee Hist. Columbus (Ohio) I. 17 note, Yellow-legged snipe, or tattler,..common in autumn on western rivers. |
So ˈtattlery (rare—0), ‘idle talk or chat’ (Webster 1847).