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Webster 1913 Edition

Rat

Rat

,
Verb.
I.
[
imp. & p. p.
Ratted
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Ratting
.]
1.
In English politics, to desert one’s party from interested motives; to forsake one's associates for one's own advantage; in the trades, to work for less wages, or on other conditions, than those established by a trades union.
Coleridge . . . incurred the reproach of having
ratted
, solely by his inability to follow the friends of his early days.
De Quincey.
2.
To catch or kill rats.

Webster 1828 Edition

Rat

RAT

,
Noun.
[Probably named from gnawing, and from the root of L. rodo.]
A small quadruped of the genus Mus, which infests houses, stores and ships; a troublesome race of animals.
To smell a rat, to be suspicious, to be on the watch from suspicion; as a cat by the scent or noise of a rat.

Definition 2024

Rat

Rat

See also: rat, rất, rät, and råt

English

Proper noun

Rat

  1. The first of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.

German

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old High German rāt, from Proto-Germanic *rēdaz (compare Dutch raad, English rede, Old English ræd).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʀaːt/
  • Rhymes: -aːt
  • Homophone: Rad (according to the standard pronunciation of that word)

Noun

Rat m ‎(genitive Rats or Rates, plural Räte)

  1. advice
  2. council
  3. councilor, councillor

Declension

Derived terms

Luxembourgish

Etymology

From Old High German rato, from Proto-Germanic *rattaz. Cognate with German Ratte, Dutch rat, English rat, Icelandic rotta.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʀaːt/
  • Rhymes: -aːt
  • Homophone: Rad

Noun

Rat m, f ‎(plural Raten)

  1. rat

rat

rat

See also: Rat, rất, rät, and råt

English

A brown rat, one of the many species of rat.

Noun

rat ‎(plural rats)

  1. (zoology) A medium-sized rodent belonging to the genus Rattus.
    • 2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200:
      Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.
  2. (informal) A term indiscriminately applied to numerous members of several rodent families (e.g. voles and mice) having bodies longer than about 12 cm, or 5 inches.
  3. (informal) A person who is known for betrayal; a scoundrel; a quisling.
    What a rat, leaving us stranded here!‎
  4. (informal) An informant or snitch.
  5. (slang) A person who routinely spends time at a particular location.
    Our teenager has become a mall rat.‎
    He loved hockey and was a devoted rink rat.‎
  6. Scab.
  7. (north-west London, slang) ****.
    Get your rat out.‎
  8. A wad of shed hair used as part of a hairstyle.
Synonyms
Derived terms
See also
Translations

Verb

rat ‎(third-person singular simple present rats, present participle ratting, simple past and past participle ratted)

  1. (usually with “on” or “out”) To betray someone and tell their secret to an authority or an enemy; to turn someone in, bewray.
    He ratted on his coworker.
    He is going to rat us out!
  2. (of a dog, etc.) To kill rats.
Synonyms
Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English ratten, further etymology unknown. Compare Middle High German ratzen ‎(“to scratch; rasp; tear”). Could be related to write. See also rit.

Noun

rat ‎(plural rats)

  1. (regional) A scratch or a score.
  2. (nautical, regional) A place in the sea with rapid currents and crags where a ship is likely to be torn apart in stormy weather.

Verb

rat ‎(third-person singular simple present rats, present participle ratting, simple past and past participle ratted)

  1. (regional) To scratch or score.
    He ratted a vertical line on his face with a pocket knife‎.
  2. (regional, rare, obsolete) To tear, rip, rend.
    Ratted to shreds.‎
Usage notes

The verb "rat" is rarely used in the second sense. In the sense of to tear, rip, rend, the form to-rat is more common. Compare German zerreißen ‎(“to rip up, tear, rend”).

References

Anagrams

Catalan

Pronunciation

  • (Balearic) IPA(key): /ˈrat/
  • (Central) IPA(key): /ˈrat/
  • (Valencian) IPA(key): /ˈrat/
  • Rhymes: -at

Noun

rat m ‎(plural rats)

  1. rat

Synonyms

Danish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /rat/, [ˈʁɑd̥]
  • Homophone: ret

Noun

rat n (singular definite rattet, plural indefinite rat)

  1. wheel, steering wheel

Inflection

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -ɑt
  • IPA(key): /rɑt/
  • Homophone: rad

Noun

rat f ‎(plural ratten, diminutive ratje n)

  1. rat

French

Etymology

From Middle French rat ‎(“rat”), from Old French rat ‎(“rat”), from Frankish *rato ‎(“rat”); further origin uncertain. More at rat.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʁa/

Noun

rat m ‎(plural rats)

  1. rat
  2. (informal) sweetheart
  3. scrooch

Related terms

Anagrams

Lojban

Rafsi

rat

  1. rafsi of ratni.

Norman

Etymology

From Old French rat ‎(“rat”).

Noun

rat m ‎(plural rats)

  1. (Jersey, Guernsey) rat

Derived terms

Occitan

Noun

rat m (plural rats)

  1. (Rattus rattus)[1]black rat

Synonyms

Related terms

Derived terms

References

  1. ↑ Gui Benoèt, "Las bèstias", 2008, Toulouse, IEO Edicions, 2008, ISBN 978-2-85910-454-2, p. 161

Old French

Etymology

Of Germanic origin. Seerat for more.

Noun

rat m ‎(oblique plural raz or ratz, nominative singular raz or ratz, nominative plural rat)

  1. rat (rodent)

Descendants

Romani

Etymology

From Sanskrit रक्त ‎(rakta, “blood”). Compare dialectal Hindi रात ‎(rāt) and Punjabi ਰੱਤ ‎(ratt, “blood”).

Noun

rat m ‎(plural rat)

  1. blood

Romansch

Etymology

From Frankish *rato ‎(“rat”).

Noun

rat m (plural rats)

  1. (Surmiran) rat

Synonyms

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *ortь.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /rât/

Noun

rȁt m ‎(Cyrillic spelling ра̏т)

  1. war
    Samo idioti misle da rat rješava probleme. (Ijekavian)
    Samo idioti misle da rat rešava probleme. (Ekavian)
    Only idiots think that war solves problems.

Declension

Torres Strait Creole

Etymology

From English rat.

Noun

rat

  1. rat or mouse

Synonyms

Volapük

Etymology

Borrowing from English rat.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ɾat]

Noun

rat ‎(plural rats)

  1. rat (rodent of the family Muridae)

Declension

Hyponyms

Hypernyms

Derived terms

See also

Etymology

From Middle English rat, rotte, from Old English ræt, as though from Proto-Germanic *rattaz, *rattō (compare West Frisian rôt, Dutch rat); but the rat was unknown in Northern Europe in antiquity, so if the Proto-Germanic word is real it must have referred to a different animal. Attestation of this family of words begins in the 12th century.

Some of the Germanic cognates show consonant variation, e.g. Middle High German rate, radde, ratte, ratze. The irregularity may be symptomatic of a late dispersal of the word, in which case it would not be old. Kroonen (2011) rather accounts for it with a Proto-Germanic stem *raþō nom., *ruttaz gen., showing both ablaut and a Kluge's law alternation, with the variation arising from varying remodellings in the daughters. This requires a Proto-Indo-European etymon in final *t, and is hence incompatible with the usual derivation from Proto-Indo-European *reh₁d- ‎(“to scrape”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: răt, IPA(key): /ɹæt/
  • Rhymes: -æt

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