Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who prates; an idle talker; a loquacious person; one who speaks much to little purpose; a babbler.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who prates.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who prates; a chatterer.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an obnoxious and foolish and loquacious talker

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

prate + -er

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Examples

  • This young woman might talk politics, thought her new friend; no male man would call her prater, while she bore herself with that air.

    The Testing of Diana Mallory Humphry Ward 1885

  • The Editorial Page is consistently an embarrassment, the Opinion Page hasn't updated their contributor rolodex in decades and the paper carries a gaggle of inside-the-beltway dilettantes who almost never add anything of substance to the debate (you know: Broder, Milbank, Kurtz and the other regurgitators of cocktail party prater on the WP payroll).

    The Bias That We Fight... 2009

  • The etymology of 'prat' is unclear, but I think it relates to prate 'chatter', which had such derivatives as prater and prattle.

    On being linguistically defeated DC 2008

  • Zophar of Naamath reproached thee with being a prater; but none of these good friends lent thee a crown.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • He who joins in the mutiny is termed a good pilot and what not; they have no conception that the true pilot must observe the winds and the stars, and must be their master, whether they like it or not; — such an one would be called by them fool, prater, star-gazer.

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • Yorkshire abused by such a pitiful prater; and when wrought up to a certain pitch, she would turn and say something of which neither the matter nor the manner recommended her to Mr. Donne's good - will.

    Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte 2004

  • What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad.

    The Life of King Henry the Fifth 2004

  • Bentley having spoken thus, Scaliger, bestowing him a sour look, “Miscreant prater!” said he,

    The Battle of the Books 2003

  • Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

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