2. To assail, annoy, or stun with a ratting noise.
Sound but another [drum], and another shall As loud
as thine rattle the welkin's ear. --Shak.
3. Hence, to disconcert; to confuse; as, to rattle one's
judgment; to rattle a player in a game. [Colloq.]
4. To scold; to rail at. --L'Estrange.
{To rattle off}.
(a) To tell glibly or noisily; as, to rattle off a story.
(b) To rail at; to scold. ``She would sometimes rattle off
her servants sharply.'' --Arbuthnot.
All this ado about the golden age is but an empty
rattle and frivolous conceit. --Hakewill.
3. An instrument with which a ratting sound is made;
especially, a child's toy that rattle when shaken.
The rattles of Isis and the cymbals of Brasilea
nearly enough resemble each other. --Sir W.
Raleigh.
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. --Pope.
4. A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.
It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so
much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have
been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an
empty, noisy, blundering rattle. --Macaulay.
5. A scolding; a sharp rebuke. [Obs.] --Heylin.
6. (Zo["o]l.) Any organ of an animal having a structure
adapted to produce a ratting sound.
Note: The rattle of the rattlesnake is composed of the
hardened terminal scales, loosened in succession, but
not cast off, and so modified in form as to make a
series of loose, hollow joints.
7. The noise in the throat produced by the air in passing
through mucus which the lungs are unable to expel; --
chiefly observable at the approach of death, when it is
called the death rattle. See {R[^a]le}.
{To spring a rattle}, to cause it to sound.
{Yellow rattle} (Bot.), a yellow-flowered herb ({Rhinanthus
Crista-galli}), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the
inflated calyx.
And the rude hail in rattling tempest forms.
--Addison.
'T was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the
stony street. --Byron.