In that book, Hoving made many claims that rattled the gatekeepers of the art world.
He admitted that repeated questions about the currency and the economy had rattled voters.
The crisis in neighbouring Ukraine has rattled Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian regime.
It was a ghastly tragedy that rattled a nation and became a byword for anti-Semitism in France.
rattled, Harris fled to New York, leaving his vast estate to his protégé.
I might have paid them at the time, but it was all so unexpected and so sudden,—it rattled me, quite.
He rattled the snaffle in his mouth with nervous indecision—he had a notion to try it.
Suddenly she dropped the brush; it rattled and spun on the polished floor.
Then Massot rattled on, telling all there was to tell about Fonsegue.
Furious blasts clutched at the windows, and rattled them like castanets.
c.1300 (intransitive), "To make a quick sharp noise with frequent repetitions and collisions of bodies not very sonorous: when bodies are sonorous, it is called jingling" [Johnson]. Perhaps in Old English but not recorded; if not, from Middle Dutch ratelen, probably of imitative origin (cf. German rasseln "to rattle," Greek kradao "I rattle"). Sense of "utter smartly and rapidly" is late 14c. Meaning "to go along loosely and noisily" is from 1550s. Transitive sense is late 14c.; figurative sense of "fluster" is first recorded 1869. Related: Rattled; rattling.
c.1500, "rapid succession of short, sharp sounds," from rattle (v.). As a child's toy, recorded from 1510s. As a sound made in the throat (especially of one near death) from 1752.
adjective
Confused and upset: rattled by the news
verb