Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Nautical, to furnish with ratlines.
  • To give out a rapid succession of short, sharp, jarring or clattering sounds; clatter, as by continuous concussions.
  • To move or be carried along with a continuous rapid clatter; go or proceed or bear one's self noisily: often used with reference to speed rather than to the accompanying noise.
  • To speak with noisy and rapid utterance; talk rapidly or in a chattering manner: as, to rattle on about trifles.
  • To cause to make a rattling sound or a rapid succession of hard, sharp, or jarring sounds.
  • To utter in sharp, rapid tones; deliver in a smart, rapid manner: as, to rattle off a string of names.
  • To act upon or affect by rattling sounds; startle or stir up by any noisy means.
  • To scold, chide, or rail at noisily; berate clamorously.
  • To shake up, unsettle, or disturb by censure, annoyance, or irritation; bring into an agitated or confused condition.
  • noun A rapid succession of short, sharp, clattering sounds, as of intermitting collision or concussion.
  • noun A rattling clamor of words; sharp, rapid talk of any kind; hence, sharp scolding or railing.
  • noun An instrument or toy contrived to make a rattling sound.
  • noun One who talks rapidly and without moderation or consideration; a noisy, impertinent talker; a jabberer.
  • noun The crepitaculum of the true rattlesnake, consisting of a series of horny epidermic cells of an undulated pyramidal shape, articulated one within the other at the extremity of the tail. See rattlesnake.
  • noun An annual herb, Rhinanthus Crista-galli, of meadows and pastures in Europe and northern Asia. It attaches itself by its fibrous roots to the roots of living grasses, etc., thus doing much damage.
  • noun One of the Old World louseworts, Pedicularis palustris, the red rattle.
  • noun The death-rattle.

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

  • transitive verb To cause to make a rattling or clattering sound.
  • transitive verb To assail, annoy, or stun with a rattling noise.
  • transitive verb colloq. Hence, to disconcert; to confuse
  • transitive verb To scold; to rail at.
  • transitive verb To rail at; to scold.
  • intransitive verb To make a quick succession of sharp, inharmonious noises, as by the collision of hard and not very sonorous bodies shaken together; to clatter.
  • intransitive verb colloq. To drive or ride briskly, so as to make a clattering.
  • intransitive verb colloq. To make a clatter with the voice; to talk rapidly and idly; to clatter; -- with on or away.
  • noun A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds.
  • noun Noisy, rapid talk.
  • noun An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles when shaken.
  • noun A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.
  • noun obsolete A scolding; a sharp rebuke.
  • noun (Zoöl.) Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a rattling sound.
  • noun The noise in the throat produced by the air in passing through mucus which the lungs are unable to expel; -- chiefly observable at the approach of death, when it is called the death rattle. See Râle.
  • noun to cause it to sound.
  • noun (Bot.) a yellow-flowered herb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the inflated calyx.

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

  • noun onomatopoeia a sound made by loose objects shaking or vibrating against one another
  • noun a baby's toy designed to make sound when shaken, usually containing loose grains or pellets in a hollow container
  • verb transitive (ergative) To create a sound by shaking.
  • verb transitive To scare, startle, unsettle, or unnerve.
  • verb transitive To cause something to make a rattling sound by hitting it.
  • verb intransitive To make a rattling noise; to make noise by or from shaking.

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

  • noun a rapid series of short loud sounds (as might be heard with a stethoscope in some types of respiratory disorders)
  • verb make short successive sounds
  • noun a baby's toy that makes percussive noises when shaken
  • noun loosely connected horny sections at the end of a rattlesnake's tail
  • verb shake and cause to make a rattling noise

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(onomatopoeia). Toy named after sound.

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Examples

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  • My pennies rattle in the plastic bowl.

    - Peter Reading, Kwickie Service, from The Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery, 1976

    June 23, 2008