rattle

from The Century Dictionary.

• Nautical, to furnish with ratlines.
• To give out a rapid succession of short, sharp, jarring or clattering sounds; clatter, as by continuous concussions.
• To move or be carried along with a continuous rapid clatter; go or proceed or bear one's self noisily: often used with reference to speed rather than to the accompanying noise.
• To speak with noisy and rapid utterance; talk rapidly or in a chattering manner: as, to rattle on about trifles.
• To cause to make a rattling sound or a rapid succession of hard, sharp, or jarring sounds.
• To utter in sharp, rapid tones; deliver in a smart, rapid manner: as, to rattle off a string of names.
• To act upon or affect by rattling sounds; startle or stir up by any noisy means.
• To scold, chide, or rail at noisily; berate clamorously.
• To shake up, unsettle, or disturb by censure, annoyance, or irritation; bring into an agitated or confused condition.
• noun A rapid succession of short, sharp, clattering sounds, as of intermitting collision or concussion.
• noun A rattling clamor of words; sharp, rapid talk of any kind; hence, sharp scolding or railing.
• noun An instrument or toy contrived to make a rattling sound.
• noun One who talks rapidly and without moderation or consideration; a noisy, impertinent talker; a jabberer.
• noun The crepitaculum of the true rattlesnake, consisting of a series of horny epidermic cells of an undulated pyramidal shape, articulated one within the other at the extremity of the tail. See rattlesnake.
• noun An annual herb, Rhinanthus Crista-galli, of meadows and pastures in Europe and northern Asia. It attaches itself by its fibrous roots to the roots of living grasses, etc., thus doing much damage.
• noun One of the Old World louseworts, Pedicularis palustris, the red rattle.
• noun The death-rattle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To cause to make a rattling or clattering sound.
• transitive verb To assail, annoy, or stun with a rattling noise.
• transitive verb colloq. Hence, to disconcert; to confuse
• transitive verb To scold; to rail at.
• transitive verb To rail at; to scold.
• intransitive verb To make a quick succession of sharp, inharmonious noises, as by the collision of hard and not very sonorous bodies shaken together; to clatter.
• intransitive verb colloq. To drive or ride briskly, so as to make a clattering.
• intransitive verb colloq. To make a clatter with the voice; to talk rapidly and idly; to clatter; -- with on or away.
• noun A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds.
• noun Noisy, rapid talk.
• noun An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles when shaken.
• noun A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.
• noun obsolete A scolding; a sharp rebuke.
• noun (Zoöl.) Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a rattling sound.
• noun The noise in the throat produced by the air in passing through mucus which the lungs are unable to expel; -- chiefly observable at the approach of death, when it is called the death rattle. See Râle.
• noun to cause it to sound.
• noun (Bot.) a yellow-flowered herb (Rhinanthus Crista-galli), the ripe seeds of which rattle in the inflated calyx.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun onomatopoeia a sound made by loose objects shaking or vibrating against one another
• noun a baby's toy designed to make sound when shaken, usually containing loose grains or pellets in a hollow container
• verb transitive (ergative) To create a sound by shaking.
• verb transitive To scare, startle, unsettle, or unnerve.
• verb transitive To cause something to make a rattling sound by hitting it.
• verb intransitive To make a rattling noise; to make noise by or from shaking.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a rapid series of short loud sounds (as might be heard with a stethoscope in some types of respiratory disorders)
• verb make short successive sounds
• noun a baby's toy that makes percussive noises when shaken
• noun loosely connected horny sections at the end of a rattlesnake's tail
• verb shake and cause to make a rattling noise