Definition of "rattle" []

• To make or emit a quick succession of short percussive sounds. (verb-intransitive)
• To move with such sounds: A train rattled along the track. (verb-intransitive)
• To talk rapidly and at length, usually without much thought: rattled on about this and that. (verb-intransitive)
• To cause to make a quick succession of short percussive sounds: rattled the dishes in the kitchen. (verb-transitive)
• To utter or perform rapidly or effortlessly: rattled off a list of complaints. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But, Lynnda, check this out ... * rattle rattle CLANK RATTLE rattle CLANK rattle* Don't you think you should do something about that?"
• "The normal early morning gun was sending its normal shell at intervals ranging up the long valley -- _rattle, rattle, rattle_, until the echo died away up the slopes, like that of a vanishing railway train, or the long-drawn bark of a dog."
• "Yet it was a shift in the entire base of fan culture, rather than a simple realisation that rattles were annoying, that removed the rattle from the terraces."