clattery

English

Etymology

From clatter +‎ -y.

Adjective

clattery (comparative more clattery, superlative most clattery)

1. (informal) Tending to cause a clatter; noisy and possibly cumbersome.
   • 1880, Mark Twain, chapter 32, in A Tramp Abroad‎^[1], Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, page 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^[2], 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, chapter 14, in The Names, New York: Vintage, published 1989, page 337:

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

   • 2013, Rachel Kushner, chapter 6, in The Flamethrowers, New York: Scribner, page 99:

     The truck’s clattery, loose-valved idle.