c1500 (?a1475) Assembly of Gods (1896) 674 (MED) Ther were bosters, braggars, & brybores, Praters, fasers, strechers, & wrythers.

?1550 J. Bale Apol. agaynste Papyst Pref. 13 Though Hierome wer a great prater and boaster of virginitie, yet was he no virgine.

1596 R. Cotton Armor of Proofe sig. C What good comes of these praters & tale bearers, reade Pro. 26.20.21.22.

1622 T. Scott Belgicke Pismire 10 He is a prater..that never doeth any thing.

a1680 S. Butler Genuine Remains (1759) II. 223 A Prater..is like a Earwig, when he gets within a Man's Ear he is not easily to be got out again.

1704 J. Swift Full Acct. Battel between Bks. in Tale of Tub 269 Miscreant Prater... Eloquent only in thine own Eyes, Thou railest without Wit.

a1722 J. Toland Coll. Several Pieces (1726) I. 123 The tips of all Prater's tongues are bor'd.

1785 R. Graves Eugenius I. ii. 6 Our orators are mere praters.

1828 W. Carr Dial. Craven (ed. 2) Prattle-Basket, a prattling child, a little young prater.

1858 ‘G. Eliot’ Scenes Clerical Life II. i. 51 A deistical prater, fit to sit in the chimney-corner of a pot-house, and make blasphemous comments.

1883 F. Leifchild in Contemp. Rev. 43 51 Laertes..a prater of moral maxims, while he is all for Paris and its pleasures.

1900 S. J. Weyman Story Francis Cludde (new ed.) xv. 177 We will have no Anabaptists here, nor foreign praters to bring us into feud with our neighbors.

1977 Times 28 Jan. 14/3 The praters of the left claim, I am an appalling reactionary.

1995 Guardian (Nexis) 23 Feb. 1 Almost without exception they are the same ranters and praters who operated in the early '70s.

1803 C. Wilmot Let. 2 Aug. in Irish Peer on Continent (1920) 207 The Prater..is esteem'd the most magnificent public walk and drive in Europe.

1819 M. Wilmot More Lett. (1935) 20 The turn out in the Prater of a Sunday Eve^g is Magnificent.

1870 G. H. Lewes Jrnl. 10 Apr. in ‘G. Eliot’ Lett. (1956) V. 89 Lytton then proposed that we should drive in the Prater.

1911 Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 52/1 The Prater, a vast expanse (2000 acres) of wood and park on the east side of the city, between the Danube and the Danube Canal, is greatly frequented by all classes.

1938 W. J. Turner Mozart xvi. 312 One fine autumn day when they were sitting in the beautiful Prater, Mozart spoke of his approaching death.

1996 L. Al-Hafidh et al. Europe: Rough Guide (ed. 3) ii. i. 77 The public were allowed access to the Prater by Josef II, who apparently walked here often himself, quixotically ordering passing members of the public not to salute him.