The chatterati includes members of the media (especially columnists), talk show hosts, TV talking heads, and so on. Although such people have been around for a long time, their particular social niche has only had a name since about 1990: Chatterati combines chattering classes, "the social group consisting of those people who are educated, articulate, and opinionated," and the suffix -rati, "the elite or intelligentsia of a particular group." Chattering classes is a British colloquialism that entered the language in the mid 1980s:

Thanks to subscriber Alex Poole for spying today's word.