tattle
/ˈtæt(ə)l/
"tattle" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tattle” is an uncommon English word, ranked #64,052 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #64,052
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To chatter; to gossip.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tattle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈtæt(ə)l/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #64,052 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tattle” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tattle is 6 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtæt(ə)l/. Corpus data places it at rank #64,052 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for tattle, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to babble, chatter”) (modern Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to talk, chatter”)), originally imitative. The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian tätelje (“to talk nonsense, babble”), Middle Low German tāteren, tadderen (“to b… The correct English form is tattle, spelled T-A-T-T-L-E.
Definition
- 1To chatter; to gossip.
- 2Often said of children: to report incriminating information about another person, or a person's wrongdoing in an annoying fashion, usually to a person in a position of authority over the accused person; to tell on somebody.
- 3To speak like a baby or young child; to babble, to prattle; to speak haltingly; to stutter.
Etymology
From Middle Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to babble, chatter”) (modern Dutch tatelen, tateren (“to talk, chatter”)), originally imitative. The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian tätelje (“to talk nonsense, babble”), Middle Low German tāteren, tadderen (“to babble, chatter”) (whence modern German Low German tatern (“to chatter”)), Low German tateln, täteln (“to cackle, gabble”). Compare also Middle English dadel, dadull (“tattling, gossip”), and its alteration twaddle.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tattle”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-T-T-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈtæt(ə)l/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.