Rattle \Rat"tle\, v. t.

1. To cause to make a ratting or clattering sound; as, to rattle a chain.

2. To assail, annoy, or stun with a ratting noise.

Sound but another [drum], and another shall As loud as thine rattle the welkin's ear. --Shak.

3. Hence, to disconcert; to confuse; as, to rattle one's judgment; to rattle a player in a game. [Colloq.]

4. To scold; to rail at. --L'Estrange.

To rattle off.
   (a) To tell glibly or noisily; as, to rattle off a story.
   (b) To rail at; to scold. ``She would sometimes rattle off her servants sharply.'' --Arbuthnot.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Rattle \Rat"tle\, n.

1. A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum. --Prior.

2. Noisy, rapid talk.

All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit. --Hakewill.

3. An instrument with which a ratting sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattle when shaken.

The rattles of Isis and the cymbals of Brasilea nearly enough resemble each other. --Sir W. Raleigh.

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. --Pope.

4. A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.

It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. --Macaulay.

5. A scolding; a sharp rebuke. [Obs.]

--Heylin.

6. (Zo["o]l.) Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a ratting sound.

Note: The rattle of the rattlesnake is composed of the hardened terminal scales, loosened in succession, but not cast off, and so modified in form as to make a series of loose, hollow joints.

7. The noise in the throat produced by the air in passing through mucus which the lungs are unable to expel; -- chiefly observable at the approach of death, when it is called the death rattle. See R[^a]le.

To spring a rattle, to cause it to sound.

Yellow rattle (Bot.), a yellow-flowered herb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the inflated calyx.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Rattle \Rat"tle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Rattled; p. pr. & vb. n. Rattling.]

[Akin to D. ratelen, G. rasseln, AS. hr[ae]tele a rattle, in hr[ae]telwyrt rattlewort; cf. Gr. ? to swing, wave. Cf. Rail a bird.]

1. To make a quick succession of sharp, inharmonious noises, as by the collision of hard and not very sonorous bodies shaken together; to clatter.

And the rude hail in rattling tempest forms. --Addison.

'T was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. --Byron.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)