Also 6 tyttel tattyll, 6–8 title(-)tatle, 7 tittel tattel. [A reduplicated compound of TATTLE sb., expressing repeated and alternate action: cf. next.]
1. Talk, chatter, prattle; esp. empty or trifling talk about trivial matters, petty gossip.
(In quot. a. 1529 perh. used advb.)
a. 1529. Skelton, Phyllyp Sparowe, 357. I played with him tyttel tattyll, And fed him with my spattyl, With his byll betwene my lippes.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 226. Rhymerales … made muche title tattle nor would in no wyse lynne pratyng therof.
1573. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 106. ’Tis but … fond womens title tatle.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 28 June. After a great deal of tittle-tattle with this honest man, we to bed.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 176. To … be let into all the scandal and tittle tattle of the town.
1820. Edin. Rev., XXXIII. 309. The literary title-tattle of the age.
1893. Leland, Mem., I. 153. Inordinately given to knowing everything about everybody, and to ‘tittle-tattle.’
b. with a and pl. An act or spell of petty talk; an item of small talk or gossip. Now rare or Obs.
1570. T. Wilson, trans. Demosth., 47. Every man devising one tittletattle or other, as his own vaine heade imagines.
1639. N. N., trans. Du Bosq’s Compl. Woman, II. 42. I see many … to give themselves to these little tattles of other folks matters.
1699. R. L’Estrange, Erasm. Colloq. (1711), 127. The Tittle-tattles of the Nuns.
† 2. A habitual tattler, one given up to gossip; esp. a woman so addicted. Obs.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Languarde, a tittle tattle, a chatting dame.
1611. Cotgr., Babillarde, a title-tatle; a pratling gossip; a babling houswife; a chatting or chattering Minx.
1710. Addison, Tatler, No. 157, ¶ 13. Your Castanets or impertinent Tittle-Tattles, who have no other Variety in their Discourse but that of talking slower or faster.
3. attrib. or as adj. Characterized by or addicted to tattling; gossiping.
1719. Freethinker, No. 150, ¶ 6. Would not an English-Man be provoked to hear the same Person cry up the Softness, the Politeness, the Copiousness of that Tittle-Tattle Language, and find Fault with the Roughness and Barrenness of his own.
1768. Mme. D’Arblay, Early Diary (1889), I. 14. Such a set of tittle-tattle, prittle-prattle visitants! Oh dear! Ibid. (1780), Diary, May. Bath is as tittle-tattle a town as Lynn.
1866. Mrs. Gaskell, Wives & Dau., xvi. In such a tittle-tattle place as Hollingford.
