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Palter vs Patter - What's the difference?

palter | patter |

As a verb palter

is to talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions.

As a noun patter is

godfather.

palter

English

Alternative forms

* (l)

Verb

(en verb)
  • To talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Romans, that have spoke the word, / And will not palter .
  • * Tennyson
    • Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, / Nor paltered with eternal God for power.
  • * '>citation
  • * 2010 , Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles
    • I would prevaricate and palter in my usual plausible way, but, this being Cambridge, such stratagems would cut no ice with my remorseless and (in my imagination) gleefully malicious interrogator, who would stare at me with gimlet eyes and say in a harsh voice that crackled with mocking laughter: ‘Excuse me, but do you even know who Lermontov is ?’
  • To trifle.
  • * Beaumont and Fletcher
    • Palter out your time in the penal statutes.
  • *1886 , , The Princess Casamassima .
  • *:He waited and waited, in the faith that Schinkel was dealing with them in his slow, categorical Teutonic way, and only objurgated the cabinetmaker for having in the first place paltered with his sacred trust. Why hadn't he come straight to him—whatever the mysterious document was—instead of talking it over with French featherheads?
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), , Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 100
    • Don't palter with the second rate.
  • To haggle.
    • (Cotgrave)
  • To babble; to chatter.

    • Derived terms

    * palterer

    Anagrams

    *

    patter

    English

    Etymology 1

    1610s, of (onomatopoeia) origin.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The soft sound of feet walking on a hard surface.
    • I could hear the patter of mice running about in the dark.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1907, author=
    • , title=The Dust of Conflict , chapter=7 citation , passage=The patter of feet, and clatter of strap and swivel, seemed to swell into a bewildering din, but they were almost upon the fielato offices, where the carretera entered the town, before a rifle flashed.}}
    Derived terms
    * pitter-patter

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make irregularly repeated sounds of low-to-moderate magnitude and lower-than-average pitch.
    • The bullets pattered into the log-cabin walls.
  • * Thomson
    • The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard.
  • To spatter; to sprinkle.
  • * J. R. Drake
    • Patter the water about the boat.

    Etymology 2

    Circa 1400, from . Noun attested 1758, originally referring to the cant of thieves and beggers.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Glib and rapid speech, such as from an auctioneer, or banter during a sports event.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To speak in such a way – glibly and rapidly, such as from an auctioneer, or when bantering during a sports event.
  • * Mayhew
    • I've gone out and pattered to get money.
    Derived terms
    * Glasgow patter

    Etymology 3

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One who pats.

    • References

    English onomatopoeias