Rat″tle, n. 1. A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum. Prior.
2. Noisy, rapid talk.
All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit. Hakewill.
3. An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles when shaken.
The rattles of Isis and the cymbals of Brasilea nearly enough resemble each other. Sir W. Raleigh.
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. Pope.
4. A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.
It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. Macaulay.
5. A scolding; a sharp rebuke. Heylin.
6. (Zoöl.) Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a rattling sound.
☞ The rattle of a rattlesnake is composed of the hardened terminal scales, loosened in succession, but not cast off, and so modified in form as to make a series of loose, hollow joints.
7. 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.
To spring a rattle, to cause it to sound. — Yellow rattle(Bot.), a yellow-flowered herb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the inflated calyx.