What does tattler mean?
A tattler is a person who gossips, especially someone who habitually repeats private information or details other people’s affairs. The word can also be used as an informal verb, as in “Don’t tattler,” meaning to spread gossip or talk idly in a way that reveals what one has heard. In current English, it is mainly a disapproving label: calling someone a tattler suggests that they betray confidences or cannot resist repeating stories, not merely that they enjoy conversation. Its force is stronger than that of gossip as a count noun and more openly judgmental than the relatively neutral verb gossip. The term occurs in both British and American usage, though it is more conversational than formal. Tattler is chiefly a personal insult or a warning about someone’s indiscretion, rather than a term used in neutral description. Its value as a word is that it captures a familiar social type: the person who turns other people’s secrets into shared information.
A person who gossips or reveals other people’s private affairs.
"Her brother was always a tattler, so the family stopped telling him anything important."
Usually countable, with the regular plural “tattlers.” The term is informal and disapproving.
To gossip or talk idly, especially by revealing or repeating information one has heard.
"They promised to keep the announcement secret, but they could not resist tattling."
Informal and generally disapproving; the third-person singular is “tattlers,” and the simple past and past participle are “tattled.”
The regular plural of the noun is “tattlers.”
"The office tattlers quickly spread the news of the promotion."
The Tattler was also the title of an early-18th-century periodical by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele—a fitting name for a work devoted to talk and commentary.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does tattler come from?
Tattler comes from tattle, a Middle English word meaning “to chatter or talk idly.” That verb is generally traced to Old English tætan, “to talk, chat,” an English representative of a Germanic family of words associated with speech or chatter. Tattler is an -er formation from this base and functions as both an agent noun and, by conversion, a verb.
How tattler is actually used
The word is informal and generally disapproving. As a noun, it implies habitual gossip or the betrayal of confidences rather than merely lively conversation; as a verb, it similarly suggests indiscreet talk.
Easily confused with tattler
A tattler is the person who gossips, whereas tattle can refer to the gossip itself or to the act of passing information along.