the.com/clatter
the sound of objects arguing with the floor and losing every round
means To clatter is to make a loud, rattling series of sharp sounds, the kind produced when hard objects knock against each other or a hard surface.
from An old word of imitative birth — it simply mimics the noise it names, the way 'clack' and 'rattle' do. English has carried it for centuries, and it has likely Germanic cousins built on the same echo-the-sound principle; the Dutch 'klateren' is one such relative. In short, nobody coined it so much as overheard it.
- origin
- Imitates its own noise — a word that sounds like itself
- kitchen ruler
- Dropped pans are clatter's favorite native tongue
- vs clutter
- One letter from chaos you can hear instead of see
- horse roots
- Hooves on cobblestone gave clatter its galloping rhythm
for instance
metal fire escape stairs — common in nyc buildings, produces distinctive clattering when climbed