prate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
-
act of prating.
-
empty or foolish talk.
verb
-
(intr) to talk idly and at length; chatter
-
(tr) to utter in an idle or empty way
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
pratesimple
-
pratessimple
-
have pratedperfect
-
has pratedperfect
-
am pratingprogressive
-
are pratingprogressive
-
is pratingprogressive
-
have been pratingperfect progressive
-
has been pratingperfect progressive
Past
-
pratedsimple
-
had pratedperfect
-
was pratingprogressive
-
were pratingprogressive
-
had been pratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of prate
1375–1425; late Middle English praten (v.) < Middle Dutch praeten. See prattle
Explanation
To prate means to talk on and on about something. While it may be interesting to hear about other people’s vacations, when they prate about them until the wee hours, it becomes intolerable. There are more than a few instances where the famous have discouraged prating. Nursing great Clara Barton discouraged prating about “moral influences” when she encouraged a cigarette and a good, stiff glass of whiskey for Civil War soldiers. Herman Melville warned against mocking a lover’s wounded heart, saying “the stabbed man knows the steel; prate not to him that it is only a tickling feather.”
Vocabulary lists containing prate
The Tragedy of Macbeth
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"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act II
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The Tempest
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
You need to hold your nose through the caps on “Resenters” and the verb prate, but the professor has a point.
From Slate ● Oct. 17, 2019
He’ll bray, he’ll bate, he’ll prate, he’ll Berate, and he’ll inveigh, Then once we’ve been diverted, he’ll cause a new melee.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2018
Marriages of love become rarer year after year, while those of convenience are proportionately on the increase… and we prate of the holy marriage covenant!”
From Salon ● Mar. 9, 2014
This two-hour prate across Greek gods, gold-digging moles and burglar horses is amusing enough, but doesn't feel like it's for now, or for us.
From The Guardian ● May 8, 2013
‘None of yer prate, now,’ say the surgeons, ‘there’s wan thing which can be done, and that same thing is to keep from all unnatural excitement from this time forward.’
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
His Polonius prates on foolishly without losing his essential dignity.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 25, 2022
Styron himself prates endlessly about the sickness of the age. and Mason and Cass are obviously two of its sickest children.
From Time Magazine Archive
An educational quack, Chesterfield prates of clean minds and bodies but has sold four of the school's five bathtubs.
From Time Magazine Archive
The guru prates of selflessness but demands instant obedience to his whims.
From Time Magazine Archive
He prates as if kings had not consciences, And none required directors but the crowd.
From The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 07 by Scott, Walter, Sir
Americans' "coarse familiarity, untempered by any shadow of respect," Mrs. Trollope decided, might serve as an object lesson to all Europeans who prated about republican "democracy" from a safe distance.
From Time Magazine Archive
He saw that the tendency of the times was in the direction of literature; schools of philosophy were springing up on every side, logic and poetry were prated in every household.
From Second Book of Tales by Field, Eugene
This impost was very small—avowedly a "pepper-corn rent," retained to save the national honor, about which ministers prated so loudly.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851 by Various
I felt that extra graves would have to be dug, because dreamers—like myself—had prated peace instead of helping to make our nation more secure.
From The Sequel What the Great War will mean to Australia by Taylor, George A. (George Augustine)
It was an excellent match; Clara had shown herself a woman of determination, superior to the foolish girls who prated of love and cottages.
From Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. XLII., May 1851 by Various
As thou thou prating Raven white by nature being bred,
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2016
A "keynote" speech, therefore, is by definition a solemn prating about undisputed things.
From Time Magazine Archive
There is much unwarranted prating about the transcendency of 'experience' over 'content' in the curriculum .
From Time Magazine Archive
Here he is, prating and preening like a parrot on a stump about the need to renew American civilization.
From Time Magazine Archive
“We have had women enough sacrificed to this sentimental, hypocritical prating about purity,” she wrote to her friend Lucretia Mott.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
