Rattling

How to spell rattling

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rattling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rattling mean?

1. verbMaking or producing a rapid series of short, sharp knocking sounds.
2. adjectiveInformally, lively, brisk, or very good.

Rattling in a sentence

• verb

  The loose window kept rattling in the strong wind all night.

• adjective

  The train set off at a rattling pace toward the coast.

• verb

  A faint rattling noise from the engine worried the mechanic.

• adjective

  His new novel is a rattling good read from start to finish.

Where does rattling come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'rattle' comes from Middle English 'ratelen', a word that almost certainly began life as an imitation of the very noise it describes, the rapid clattering of loose objects knocking together. It has close cousins across the Germanic languages, including the Dutch 'ratelen' and the German 'rasseln', both also meaning to clatter or rattle, which points to a shared and very old Germanic source rather than any borrowing from Latin or French. The '-ing' ending is the ordinary English suffix that turns a verb into its present participle and, by extension, into a descriptive adjective. From the literal sense of clattering, English speakers extended 'rattling' figuratively from the 1700s to mean lively, brisk, or strikingly good, as in a rattling pace. The spelling keeps the doubled 't' of 'rattle', which is the small trap to remember: the single short 'a' demands two t's before the '-ling'.

How the word is built

• rattle (to make short sharp knocking sounds)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)