Clattering

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The action of creating a series of loud, abrupt noises from the impact of hard surfaces coming into contact with each other
2. The production of sharp, echoing sounds typically generated by multiple solid objects hitting against one another in quick succession
3. The act of producing jarring, resonant sounds when hard materials collide rapidly and repeatedly

Etymology: "Clattering" is the present participle of "clatter," so its story is really the story of the verb. The root is onomatopoeia: the sound itself gave the word its shape. Middle English "clatren" meant "to make a rattling sound," and it descends from an Old English form, reconstructed as "clatrian," that appears in a late Old English verbal noun, "clatrung." Nobody invented the word on paper; it was built to imitate the noise of hard things knocking together. The same sound-based family spread across the Low German and Dutch languages, where Dutch has "klateren" and "kletteren," both meaning to rattle or clatter. English kept the consonant cluster "cl-" that signals a sharp, noisy impact, a pattern it shares with words like "clap" and "clash." The noun "clatter" came later, formed from the verb and first recorded in the 14th century. So for people who heard the noise before they named it, the verb came first, and the rattling racket it described became a thing you could name as well.

Synonyms: clanging, rattling

Antonyms: silencing, quieting