These words all refer to confused, rapid, incoherent or worthless talk. Chatter is the most general of these; it may refer to quick rambling talk that is light, idle or inconsequential, or it may refer to a din of voices all speaking at once: the man who pretended to listen silently as his wife chattered on and on; the women chattering in the backyard like a flock of magpies. The word is perhaps most appropriate to describe women’s or children’s voices, since a high-pitched quality of speech is usually implied. Babble suggests the almost idiotically meandering talk of a person or group of persons, without reference to sex: the drunkard who babbled out his life history to everyone in the crowded bar; the spectators in the gallery whose combined voices babbled in one continuous uproar.

Jabber is a jocose, slangy way of referring to rapid interchanges of a conversation one doesn’t understand or considers trivial: two merchants jabbering away in their bargaining for the cheer delight of hearing their own voices. The suggestion is even stronger in this word of a frenetic pace without respite. Gibber , however, is more strongly pejorative than jabber when applied to people. It suggests that the sounds produced are literally meaningless: a gibbering idiot; dancer who gibbered in grunts and groans that kept time with the music. The word may be purely descriptive when applied to animals: monkeys gibbering back and forth in the branches overhead. Prattle shares with jabber and gibber suggestions of unintelligible sounds, but if confined to children or sound in nature, the result is not pejorative: a baby prattling contentedly in his cot; a lazy waterfall that prattled to itself all day. If used of adult speech, of course, the word suggests stupidity or childishness: the old man who prattled to himself on the park bench.

In prate , the suggestion of frenetically paced group speech present in chatter and babble is absent, as well as the unintelligibility present in those words grouped with babble . Prate , on the contrary, most readily suggests a tedious, long-winded monologue full of the speaker’s self-importance: a teacher who prates on disconnectedly but relentlessly about everything that comes into his head. Yak is a slang word for conversation that is neither necessarily hectic nor unintelligible; it suggests, instead, a contented, relaxed flow of talk that is idle or trivial: His favourite pastime at university was yakking with friends till all hours of the night. The word can also carry a pejorative implication, in which case constant, frenetic and noisy talk may be indicated: He was nearly driven mad by the way his wife yakked at him without pause.