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
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
But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving.
From Salon ● Apr. 10, 2011
‘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
He prates of duty and discipline and chides Mrs. Alving on the libertarian tenor of the books she reads.
From Time Magazine Archive
The guru prates of selflessness but demands instant obedience to his whims.
From Time Magazine Archive
Milt prates of the good things in life, but he, too, is gnawed by despair.
From Time Magazine Archive
Who prates of calm Nirvana, of quietism's joys?
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, July 12, 1890 by Various
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
She prated of a great-uncle who married a niece of Lord Campbell—a cousin underscored in her records as Laird of Barula—the grand Makemies, the high-stepping Gabies, and the learned Gobies.
From The ghosts of their ancestors by Mills, Weymer Jay
And with all that—and after all is said—there was something in me that warmed to her—perhaps the shadow of kinship—perhaps because of her utter ignorance of all she prated of so wisely.
From The Reckoning by Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Yes; he had worshipped at the shrine of the Beautiful; he had prated of the Renaissance.
From Dreamers of the Ghetto by Zangwill, Israel
People said that such an example of conjugal felicity was not often seen in those degenerate days, for even then they prated of the golden age of their grandfathers, lamenting their own decadence....
From Orientations by Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
As thou thou prating Raven white by nature being bred,
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2016
Here he is, prating and preening like a parrot on a stump about the need to renew American civilization.
From Time Magazine Archive
A "keynote" speech, therefore, is by definition a solemn prating about undisputed things.
From Time Magazine Archive
For why should a blockhead have one in ten For prating so long like a book-learned sot Till pudding and dumpling burn to a pot?
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.
