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What is "patter"

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patter
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
patter
I.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
the rain patters on sth (=drops of rain hit something and make a sound)
▪ Rain pattered on the roof.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I could hear feet shuffling and pattering about upstairs.
▪ Raindrops were pattering on the car roof.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A few raindrops patter on the roof.
▪ A small fountain pattered gently in the big reception hall.
▪ And the old fountain, now green with moss and algae, made a sweet, pattering sound.
▪ He liked rain in September, its calm gray pattering.
▪ It pattered quietly in the distance, each small wave softly succeeding the next.
▪ Outside the rain pattered lightly on the window, and in the room there was a great sense of tranquillity.
▪ There was a sound of stir all over the house, pattering of feet in the corridors.
▪ They could hear the rain pattering in the grass and bouncing off the roof of the jeep.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a salesman's patter
▪ My thoughts wandered as the tour guide began his patter.
▪ the patter of mice in the attic
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As I hurried I heard the scrabbling patter of the wolves closing in.
▪ Dennis was knocking the stuff back like lager, not even bothering with his usual patter.
▪ It was drizzling very lightly, and I could hear the tiny patter of small raindrops.
▪ Paula Curry was good at hiding discomfort behind easy patter, but the strain was starting to tell.
▪ The tour guide begins his patter on Forty-sixth.
▪ While you are doing this trick it's a good idea to invent a little patter.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Patter

Patter \Pat"ter\, v. t.

  1. To spatter; to sprinkle. [R.] ``And patter the water about the boat.''
    --J. R. Drake.

  2. [See Patter, v. i., 2.] To mutter; as prayers.

    [The hooded clouds] patter their doleful prayers.
    --Longfellow.

    To patter flash, to talk in thieves' cant. [Slang]

Patter

Patter \Pat"ter\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Pattered; p. pr. & vb. n. Pattering.] [Freq. of pat to strike gently.]

  1. To strike with a quick succession of slight, sharp sounds; as, pattering rain or hail; pattering feet.

    The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard.
    --Thomson.

  2. To mutter; to mumble; as, to patter with the lips.
    --Tyndale. [In this sense, and in the following, perh. from paternoster.]

  3. To talk glibly; to chatter; to harangue. [Colloq.]

    I've gone out and pattered to get money.
    --Mayhew.

Patter

Patter \Pat"ter\, n.

  1. A quick succession of slight sounds; as, the patter of rain; the patter of little feet.

  2. Glib and rapid speech; a voluble harangue.

  3. The cant of a class; patois; as, thieves's patter; gypsies' patter.

  4. The language or oratory of a street peddler, conjurer, or the like, hence, glib talk; a voluble harangue; mere talk; chatter; also, specif., rapid speech, esp. as sometimes introduced in songs. [Cant or Colloq.]

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
patter

"make quick taps," 1610s, frequentative of pat (v.). Related: Pattered; pattering. As a noun in this sense from 1844.

patter

"talk rapidly," c.1400, from pater "mumble prayers rapidly" (c.1300), shortened form of paternoster. Perhaps influenced by patter (v.1). The related noun is first recorded 1758, originally "cant language of thieves and beggars." Compare Devil's paternoster (1520s) "a grumbling and mumbling to oneself."\n\nPATTERING. The maundering or pert replies of servants; also talk or palaver in order to amuse one intended to be cheated.

[Grose, "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 2nd edition. 1788]

Wiktionary
patter

Etymology 1 n. The soft sound of feet walking on a hard surface. vb. 1 To make irregularly repeated sounds of low-to-moderate magnitude and lower-than-average pitch. 2 To spatter; to sprinkle. Etymology 2

n. glib and rapid speech, such as from an auctioneer, or banter during a sports event. vb. To speak in such a way – glibly and rapidly, such as from an auctioneer, or when bantering during a sports event. Etymology 3

n. One who pats.

WordNet
patter

  1. n. plausible glib talk (especially useful to a salesperson) [syn: spiel, line of gab]

  2. a quick succession of light rapid sounds; "the patter of mice"; "the patter of tiny feet"

patter

  1. v. rain gently; "It has only sprinkled, but the roads are slick" [syn: sprinkle, spit, spatter, pitter-patter]

  2. make light, rapid and repeated sounds; "gently pattering rain" [syn: pitter-patter]

Wikipedia
Patter (disambiguation)

Patter may refer to:

  • Patter, a kind of speech
  • Patter song
  • Glasgow Patter (a.k.a. The Patter)
Patter

Patter is a prepared and practiced speech that is designed to produce a desired response from its audience. Examples of occupations with a patter might include the auctioneer, salesperson, dance caller, or comedian.

The term may have been a colloquial shortening of " Pater Noster", and may have referred to the practice of mouthing or mumbling prayers quickly and mechanically.

From this, it became a slang word for the secret and equally incomprehensible mutterings of a cant language used by beggars, thieves, gypsies, etc., and then the fluent plausible talk that a cheap-jack employs to pass off his goods. Many illusionists, e.g., card magicians, use patter both to enhance the show and to distract the attention of the spectators.

It is thus also used of any rapid manner of talking, and of a patter-song, in which a very large number of words have to be sung at high speed to fit the music. A western square dance caller may interpolate patter — in the form of metrical lines, often of nonsense — to fill in between commands to the dancers.

In some circumstances, the talk becomes a different sense of "patter": to make a series of rapid strokes or pats, as of raindrops. Here it a form of onomatopeia.

In certain forms of entertainment, peep shows (in the historical meaning) and Russian rayok, patter is an important component of a show. The radio DJ patter is among the roots of rapping.

In hypnotherapy, the hypnotist uses a 'patter' or script to deliver positive suggestions for change to the client.

In London Labour and the London Poor, Henry Mayhew divides the street-sellers of his time into two groups: the patterers, and everyone else.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "patter".

There was a patter of running feet, and Barnacle, devotedly clutching his broom, came down the ladder.

The formal music for the branle and galliard, the charconne and allemande and pavane and the Spanish minuet blew pattering like tinfoil through the peach trees, suffocated by the drawling French of English thoraxes and the polite, beautiful French of the most highly cultured courtiers in the world.

I believe that if I can perform it regularly enough then extra rehearsals, beyond stage movements, misdirection and patter, should not be necessary.

The pangolin loosed a volley of darts that pattered into the floor beside my feet.

Patter son with the following words--xenopolycythemia, hematology, pathogenesis, disease.

Pattera and her sister working away, Pattera at the big loom, her sister Serai at one of the backstrap looms.

As he watched, Pattera tucked the shuttle into a leather bracket on the loom frame and, wrapping a brown shawl around her, scurried toward the door.

Cerryl had his own suspicions, but he wanted to hear what Pattera had to say.

He glanced toward the rear gate, confident he would see Pattera there.

She turned, and Cerryl watched blankly as Pattera scurried back down the alley, the shawl over her nightdress flapping as her bare feet padded on the stones.

The way was empty, without a sign that Pattera had ever even been there.

Two girls, probably not much older than Pattera, saw the white tunics and slipped down the side way in the middle of the row of the grand houses with their now-gray trees and gardens.

I was once an apprentice to Tellis the scrivener, when Pattera and her sister lived off the Square of the Artisans.

It was not music that the little maiden made to her ear, but only motion to her body, and just as the deaf who are deaf alone are sometimes found to take pleasure in all forms of percussion, and to derive from them some of the sensations of sound--the trembling of the air after thunder, the quivering of the earth after cannon, and the quaking of vast walls after the ringing of mighty bells--so Naomi, who was blind as well and had no sense save touch, found in her fingers, which had gathered up the force of all the other senses, the power to reproduce on this instrument of music the movement of things that moved about her--the patter of the leaves of the fig-tree in the patio of her home, the swirl of the great winds on the hill-top, the plash of rain on her face, and the rippling of the levanter in her hair.

I have been privileged to become aware of the singing of a quiet tune, some of the phrases of which were directly derivative from inarticulate vegetation--the thud of glossy blue quandongs on the soft floor of the jungle, the clicking of a discarded leaf as it fell from topmost twigs down through the strata of foliage, the bursting of a seed-pod, the patter of rejects from the million pink-fruited fig, overhanging the beach, the whisper of leaves, the faint squeal where interlocked branches fret each other unceasingly, the sigh of phantom zephyrs too elusive to be felt.