rattle off

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, reel off . Utter or perform rapidly or effortlessly, often at length. For example, The treasurer rattled off the list of all those who had not paid their dues , or She reeled off song after song . The verb rattle has been used for fast talking since the late 1300s and for other kinds of fast production since the late 1800s (George Bernard Shaw wrote of “men who rattle off their copy” in a letter of 1896). The verb reel off , which alludes to unwinding from a reel, has been used figuratively since about 1830.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Is it when you can rattle off directions to a tourist without needing to check your GPS?

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After being handed a mock-up of McDonald's Island, featuring chicken nuggets dancing around a skirted Big Mac under french fry palm trees, Johnson rattled off a rapid-fire series of self-referential jokes about the show's history.

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He rattled off all the levels of bureaucracy — internal, the fire commission, the City Council, the mayor — that intersect with L.A. firefighters.

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The Spaniard had served for the opening set at 5-4 up but Raducanu, ranked 56, rattled off the next three games to take control of the match.

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I had a mortgage calculator on my phone, and I’d rattle off what a monthly payment might be on whatever house we were scheduled to see, the anticipation like static electricity.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

rattlehead rattlepate

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