What is "to spring a rattle"

Spring \Spring\ (spr[i^]ng), v. t.

1. To cause to spring up; to start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth, or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant.

2. To produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly; as, to spring a surprise on someone; to spring a joke.

   She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light.
   --Dryden.

   The friends to the cause sprang a new project.
   --Swift.

3. To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine.

4. To crack or split; to bend or strain so as to weaken; as, to spring a mast or a yard.

5. To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap operated by a spring; as, to spring a trap.

6. To bend by force, as something stiff or strong; to force or put by bending, as a beam into its sockets, and allowing it to straighten when in place; -- often with in, out, etc.; as, to spring in a slat or a bar.

7. To pass over by leaping; as, to spring a fence.

8. To release (a person) from confinement, especially from a prison. [colloquial]

   To spring a butt (Naut.), to loosen the end of a plank in a ship's bottom.

   To spring a leak (Naut.), to begin to leak.

   To spring an arch (Arch.), to build an arch; -- a common term among masons; as, to spring an arch over a lintel.

   To spring a rattle, to cause a rattle to sound. See Watchman's rattle, under Watchman.

   To spring the luff (Naut.), to ease the helm, and sail nearer to the wind than before; -- said of a vessel.
   --Mar. Dict.

   To spring a mast or To spring a spar (Naut.), to strain it so that it is unserviceable.

Rattle \Rat"tle\, n.

1. A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum.
   --Prior.

2. Noisy, rapid talk.

   All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit.
   --Hakewill.

3. An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles 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 rattling sound.

   Note: The rattle of a 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.