Rat·tle, n.
 1. A rapid succession of sharp, clattering sounds; as, the rattle of a drum.
 2. Noisy, rapid talk.
    All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit.   --Hakewill.
 3. An instrument with which a rattling sound is made; especially, a child's toy that rattles when shaken.
    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.
 4. A noisy, senseless talker; a jabberer.
    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.
 5. A scolding; a sharp rebuke. [Obs.]
 6. Zool. Any organ of an animal having a structure adapted to produce a rattling sound.
 Note: ☞ 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.
 7. 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.
 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.

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 Spring v. t.
 1. To cause to spring up; to start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth, or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant.
 2. To produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly; as, to spring a surprise on someone; to spring a joke.
    She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light.   --Dryden.
    The friends to the cause sprang a new project.   --Swift.
 3. To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine.
 4. To crack or split; to bend or strain so as to weaken; as, to spring a mast or a yard.
 5. To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap operated by a spring; as, to spring a trap.
 6. To bend by force, as something stiff or strong; to force or put by bending, as a beam into its sockets, and allowing it to straighten when in place; -- often with in, out, etc.; as, to spring in a slat or a bar.
 7. To pass over by leaping; as, to spring a fence.
 To spring a butt Naut., to loosen the end of a plank in a ship's bottom.
 To spring a leak Naut., to begin to leak.
 To spring an arch Arch., to build an arch; -- a common term among masons; as, to spring an arch over a lintel.
 To spring a rattle, to cause a rattle to sound. See Watchman's rattle, under Watchman.
 To spring the luff Naut., to ease the helm, and sail nearer to the wind than before; -- said of a vessel. --Mar. Dict.
 To spring a mast or To spring a spar Naut., to strain it so that it is unserviceable.