small talk

Questions about small talk

What does small talk mean?

small talk means "light informal conversation for social occasions".

What is another word for small talk?

Close synonyms include chitchat, chit-chat, chit chat, gab, gabfest. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is small talk a common word?

small talk is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.