lallate

lallate

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

lallate (third-person singular simple present lallates, present participle lallating, simple past and past participle lallated)

1. To speak pronouncing the letter "r" so that it sounds like "l".
2. To speak like a baby.
   • 2008, Clive Hazell, The Room‎:

     […] he was pulled in by the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of Isabel and Rosalinda burbling and lallating together.

   • 2014, David Foster Wallace, The David Foster Wallace Reader

     […] the therapist would start tiresomely lallating over and over and over again what her therapeutic philosophies and goals and wishes for the depressed person were […]

   • 2014, William Roetzheim, The Giant Book of Poetry

     Meanwhile I go on
     troweling, slavering the world with language
     as Jake squeals
     like a held bird and begins lallating to me in tongues.

Related terms

• lall
• lallation