Other forms: patters, pattering
To patter is to make the light quick tapping of rain or small feet. Rain pattering, the patter of feet, pattered across the floor.
The sound is light, fast and repeated, and the fixed phrase is the patter of tiny feet, meaning a baby on the way. As a noun, patter also means fast continuous talk — a salesman's patter, a comedian's patter — which is a separate word, from Pater Noster, from priests reciting prayers rapidly.
1verbpatterTo make the light quick tapping of rain or small feet.
“Rain pattered on the tin roof all night.”
2nounfastFast continuous talk.
“The market trader kept up his patter, selling pans to a crowd of shoppers.”
patter is a light tapping, or fast talk.
The rain sense is pat plus -er, onomatopoeic, from 1610. The talking sense is from Pater Noster, the Latin Lord's Prayer, muttered rapidly.
Proto-Indo-European
*blod-
Proto-Germanic
*plat- — to strike, beat
Proto-West Germanic
*platt — a smack, slap, blow
Old English
plætt — a sounding blow, a smack
Middle English
pat — a blow, stroke
English
pat
English, today
patter
Built from
1610s, pat + er, of onomatopoeia origin. pat comes from Middle English pat (“a blow, stroke”), alteration (with loss of medial l) of plat (> Scots plat (“a blow, buffet”)), from Old English plætt (“a sounding blow, a smack”), from Proto-West Germanic platt (“a smack, slap, blow”), from Proto-Germanic plat- (“to strike, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European blod-, bled- (“to strike, beat”). Cognate with Middle Dutch plat (“a smack, blow, slap”), Middle Low German plat (“a smack, blow, beating”), Middle High German plaz, blaz (“a resounding blow, bang, crash”). For loss of l, compare patch for platch; pate for plate, etc. See plat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA