Chatting

How to spell chatting

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce chatting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chatting mean?

1. verbTalking or exchanging messages in a relaxed, informal way.

Chatting in a sentence

• The two neighbours were chatting over the garden fence for an hour.

• She spent the whole evening chatting with old colleagues online.

Where does chatting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'chat', which itself is a shortened, breezier form of 'chatter' that appeared in English in the 1400s. 'Chatter' was imitative in origin, meaning the word was coined to mimic the rapid, clipped sound of light, rambling talk, much like 'twitter' or 'patter'. By clipping it down to 'chat', speakers got a friendlier word for relaxed, informal conversation, and the spelling followed the regular English rule of doubling the final consonant before '-ing' when a short stressed vowel comes before a single consonant. That doubling rule (chat to chatting, not 'chating') is the main spelling trap here, and it works exactly as it does in 'sit/sitting' and 'run/running'. In the late twentieth century the word gained a fresh life in computing, where 'chatting' came to mean exchanging short typed messages in real time online.

How the word is built

• chat (from chatter, imitative)
• -t- (doubled consonant)
• -ing (present participle suffix)