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chitter

UK/ˈtʃɪtə/US/ˈt͡ʃɪtɚ/
verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechmostly spoken

Other forms: chittering

To chitter is to make a rapid high chattering sound. Squirrels chitter, chittering in the trees, a chittering noise.

It belongs to small animals and to teeth in the cold, and in Scots it is the ordinary word for teeth chattering. The sound of the word imitates the sound it names.

Definitions of chitter

  1. 1verbchitterTo make a rapid high chattering sound.C2

    “Squirrels chittered angrily at the cat from high in the oak tree.”

chitter is a sounding.

Where it comes from

Middle English chiteren imitates the sound, and is related to chatter.

  1. Middle English

    chiteren

  2. English, today

    chitter

From Middle English chiteren, chitren, cheteren. Ultimately imitative of the sound; compare didder and teeter as well as German zittern.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word