rattlebrain

English

Etymology

rattle +‎ brain

Noun

rattlebrain (plural rattlebrains)

1. A rattlebrained person.
   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 13, in Billy Budd‎^[1], London: Constable & Co.:

     a genial young fellow enough to look at, and something of a rattlebrain, to all appearance.

   • 1962, Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated by Isaac Bachevis Singer and Cecil Hemley, The Slave, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, published 1985, Part III, p. 297:

     My mother, peace be with her, when she called me a rattlebrain, was right.