clattery

clattery

English

Etymology

clatter +‎ -y

Adjective

clattery (comparative more clattery, superlative most clattery)

1. (informal) Tending to cause a clatter; noisy and possibly cumbersome.
   • 1880, Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, Chapter 32, p. 341,

     There was a small piano in this room, a clattery, wheezy, asthmatic thing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano that the world has seen.

   • 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book 1, Chapter 19, pp. 157-158,

     She was so gay and responsive that one did not mind her heavy, running step, or her clattery way with pans.

   • 1982, Don DeLillo, The Names, New York: Vintage, 1989, Chapter 14, p. 337,

     All his words were poor clattery English like a stutterrer at the front of the class.

   • 2013, Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers, New York: Scribner, Chapter 6, p. 99,

     The truck’s clattery, loose-valved idle.