rattling
English edit
Etymology 1 edit
Adjective edit
rattling (comparative more rattling, superlative most rattling)
- Lively, quick (speech, pace).
- (dated, intensifier) good, fine.
- a rattling good lunch
- 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest[1]:
- “ […] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […] ”
- 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
- To say the truth, Sophia, when very young, discerned that Tom, though an idle, thoughtless, rattling rascal, was nobody's enemy but his own […]
- 1914 June, James Joyce, “The Dead”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC:
- I'd like nothing better this minute, said Mr Browne stoutly, than a rattling fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the shafts.
Verb edit
rattling
- present participle and gerund of rattle
Noun edit
rattling (plural rattlings)
- rattle (a sound made by loose objects shaking or vibrating against one another)
Translations edit
a sound made by loose object shaking against one another
Etymology 2 edit
Noun edit
rattling (plural rattlings)