From Middle Dutch tatelen, tateren (modern Dutch tatelen, tateren), originally imitative.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈtæt(ə)l/
• (America) IPA: /ˈtætl̩/, [-æɾl̩]

tattle (tattles, present participle tattling; simple past and past participle tattled)

1. (intransitive) To chatter; to gossip.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene i] ↗:

     He were an excellent man that were made iuſt in the mid-way between him and Benedick, the one is too like an image and ſaies nothing, and the other too like my ladies eldeſt ſonne, euermore tatling.

   • 1693, John Dryden, “[The Dedication]”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC ↗, page ix ↗:

     By this time, My Lord, I doubt not but that you wonder, why I have run off from my Biaſs ſo long together, and made ſo tedious a Digreſſion from Satire to Heroique Poetry. But if You will not excuſe it, by the tattling Quality of Age, which, as Sir William Davenant ſays, is always Narrative; yet I hope the uſefulneſs of what I have to ſay on this Subject, will qualifie the remoteneſs of it; […]

   • 1838, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter VII, in Alice or The Mysteries […], volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC ↗, book III, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433074938808;view=1up;seq=8 pages 297–298]:

     She tattled on: first to one, then to the other—then to all, till she had tattled herself out of breath;—and then the orthodox half hour had expired, and the bell was rung, and the carriage ordered, and Mrs. Hare rose to depart.

2. (intransitive, Canada, US, pejorative) Often said of children: to report incriminating information about another person, or a person's wrongdoing; to tell on somebody. [from late 15th c.]
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To speak like a baby or young child; to babble, to prattle; to speak haltingly; to stutter.

• (to chatter) see Thesaurus:prattle
• (to report incriminating information or wrongdoing) see Thesaurus:rat out

• German: klatschen, tratschen
• Portuguese: bisbilhotar
• Russian: болта́ть
• Spanish: charlotear

• French: cafarder, cafter, moucharder
• German: petzen
• Portuguese: dedurar, delatar
• Russian: я́бедничать
• Spanish: charlotear, delatar, soplar

tattle

1. (countable) A tattletale.
2. (countable, Canada, US, pejorative) Often said of children: a piece of incriminating information or an account of wrongdoing that is said about another person.
3. (uncountable) Idle talk; gossip; (countable) an instance of such talk or gossip.

• (tattletale) telltale tit; see Thesaurus:informant or Thesaurus:gossiper
• (idle talk) see Thesaurus:tattle or Thesaurus:chatter

• German: Klatsch, Tratsch