rattle off

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.

Example Sentences

“We tried this Bob Dylan-y thing, like …” she rattles off a rapid-fire nonsense representation of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “then we went through something more funky, more ironic, kind of Talking Heads,” she says, laughing.

From Los Angeles Times

To distract from that din, my dad — wearing a Dodgers jersey and hat — rattled off a bunch of long-gone bars he used to patronize on the Eastside.

From Los Angeles Times

Throughout the night, young men dressed as Trump rattled off impressions of the former president, promising to put immigrants in camps and decrying impeachment while imitating the former president’s signature raspy tone.

From Salon

McQueen, 55, is quick to rattle off a list of modern-day conflicts that have parallels to the film — in the Ukraine, the Middle East, Libya.

From Los Angeles Times

They’re in no rush to start paying rent, he said, but it didn’t take much prompting to get him to rattle off a long list of the difficulties.

From Los Angeles Times