1634. Whateley, Redemp. of Time, 15. The apostle Paul finds fault with a certain sort of women who were prattlers, which would go from house to house, twattling, and babbling out frothy speech that was good for nothing.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais; iii. xviii. They show him the short and twattle verses that were written.
c. 1660. Lestrange, Works [Century]. It is not for every twattling gossip to undertake.
d. 1691. Baxter, Self Denial, xxvii. Idle persons that will spend whole hours together in twattling.
1719. Swift, To Dr. Sheridan, 14 Dec. Such a twattling with you and your bottling.
1785. Grose, Vulgar Tongue, Pref., vii. The favourite expressions of the day . . . vanish without leaving a trace behind. Such were the late fashionable words, a bore and a twaddle, among the great vulgar. Ibid., s.v. Bore . . . much in fashion about the years 1780 and 1781.
1825. Scott, St. Ronan's Well, ii. 188. The devil take the twaddle! . . . I must tip him the cold shoulder, or he will be pestering me eternally.
1830. Greville, Memoirs, 4 Ap. The cardinals appeared a wretched set of old twaddlers.
1837. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, li. You will perhaps be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this ungrammatical twaddler.
1849. Kingsley, Alton Locke, viii. Between conceit and disgust, fancying myself one day a great new poet, and the next a mere twaddler, I got . . . puzzled and anxious.
1853. Thackeray, Eng. Humourists, v. The puny cockney bookseller, pouring endless volumes of sentimental twaddle. Ibid. (1857-9), Virginians, xviii. The soft youth in the good Bishop of Cambray's twaddling story.
1856. Reade, Never too Late, etc. xxiii. An occasion for twaddling had come, and this good soul seized it, and twaddled into a man's ear who was fainting on the rack.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Travels, 155. To be sure Cicero used to twaddle about Greek literature and philosophy, much as people do about ancient art now-a-days.
d. 1875. Helps, Works [Century]. Their lucubrations seem to me to be twaddly.
3. (old).—Perplexity, confusion; 'or anything else: a fashionable term that for a while succeeded that of bore' (Grose).
4. (old).—A diminutive person.
Twang, subs. (old: now recognised).—'A
smack or ill Taste'
(B. E.); hence (modern) = a
decided flavour.
1707. Farquhar, Beaux' Stratagem, iii. 2. Doctor, you talk very good English, but you have a mighty twang of the foreigner.
1769-78. Tucker, Light of Nature, II. ii. xxiii. Though the liquor was not at all impaired thereby in substance or virtue, it might get some twang of the vessel.
1831. Disraeli, Young Duke, iv. 6. Hot, bilious, with a confounded twang in his mouth.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, xviii. They already began to have a twang of commerce in them.
To go off twanging, verb. phr. (old).—To go well, swimmingly: cf. (Ray) as good as ever twanged = as good as may be.
1629. Massinger, Roman Actor, ii. 2. Had he died . . . It had gone off twanging.
Twangdillo (or Trangdillo).
See Twangle.
Twangey (or Stangey), subs.
(old).—A tailor: north country
(Grose).
Twangle, subs. (colloquial).—That
is 'twang': also twank,
twangdillo, twangling, and
as verb.
