[See -ING1.]
1. The crying of a hen on laying an egg; also that of a goose, or other fowl.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Parl. Foules, 562. Tho began The goose to speke, and in her cakelinge, She said.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 110. The cocke praide hir, hir cacklyng to seace.
1709. Tatler, No. 133, ¶ 1. The cackling of cranes, when they invade an army of pigmies.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 70. Constant cacklings of new-laying hens.
2. Loud idle talk or chatter: sometimes with immediate reference to the cry of a hen on laying.
1530. Palsgr., 202/2. Cackelyng, bablyng, cacquet.
1601. Dent, Path-w. Heauen, 171. They spend the rest of the day … in … cackling, prating and gossipping.
1860. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., III. cxix. 61. This cackling about improved arms is not worthy of well-informed statesmen.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 161. And when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.
