small talk (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) Idle conversation, typically on innocuous or unimportant subjects, usually engaged in at social gatherings out of politeness.
   • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Mansfield Park: A Novel. In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for T[homas] Egerton, […], OCLC 39810224 ↗, page 134 ↗:

     [T]o the credit of the lady it may be added, that […] without any of the arts of flattery or the gaieties of small talk, he began to be agreeable to her.

   • 1910, P. G. Wodehouse, Misunderstood:

     If he had a fault as a conversationalist, it was a certain tendency to monotony, a certain lack of sparkle and variety in his small-talk.

   • 2009 June 10, John Cloud, “Michael Jackson 1958–2009”, in Time^{[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1907409_1907486_1907480-3,00.html]}:

     Yet for so public a figure, Jackson was socially awkward, inept at small talk and terrified when the distant audience became an adoring mob.

• (idle conversation) pleasantries, foretalk
• See also Thesaurus:chatter

• French: papotage, courts pourparlers
• German: Alltagsgespräch, Plauderei, Smalltalk, Plaudern
• Portuguese: conversa fiada
• Russian: лёгкая бесе́да
• Spanish: charla, palique