And the rude hail in rattling tempest forms. Addison.

'T was but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. Byron.

Sound but another [drum], and another shall
As loud as thine rattle the welkin's ear. Shak.

To rattle off. (a) To tell glibly or noisily; as, to rattle off a story. (b) To rail at; to scold. "She would sometimes rattle off her servants sharply." Arbuthnot.

All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit. Hakewill.

The rattles of Isis and the cymbals of Brasilea nearly enough resemble each other. Sir W. Raleigh.

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. Pope.

It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. Macaulay.

* The rattle of a rattlesnake is composed of the hardened terminal scales, loosened in succession, but not cast off, and so modified in form as to make a series of loose, hollow joints.

To spring a rattle, to cause it to sound. -- Yellow rattle (Bot.), a yellow-flowered herb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the inflated calyx.