Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Ratten
Rat′ten
(răt′t’n)
, Verb.
T.
[Prov. E.
ratten
a rat, hence the verb literally means, to do mischief like a rat.] To deprive feloniously of the tools used in one’s employment (as by breaking or stealing them), for the purpose of annoying;
as, to
. ratten
a mechanic who works during a strike[Trades-union Cant]
J. McCarthy.
Definition 2024
Ratten
ratten
ratten
English
Verb
ratten (third-person singular simple present rattens, present participle rattening, simple past and past participle rattened)
- (obsolete, Northern England) To sabotage machinery or tools as part of an industrial dispute, particularly the tools of a workman who went against the union.
- 1947, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, Say The Word, p 100:
- ...derived from the sabot or shoe beneath railway lines. The saboteur was thus a remover of metal shoes, a train-wrecker. I must leave it at that. Meanwhile why not restore ratten to its old place in the Trade Union vocabulary, that is if, in these times of scant, we must endure any such wanton hindrance of the works?
- 1867, Report Presented to the Trades Unions Commissioners by the Examiners Appointed to Inquire Into Acts of Intimidation, Outrage, Or Wrong Alleged to Have Been Promoted, Encouraged, Or Connived at by Trades Unions in the Town of Sheffield, Great Britain. Royal Commission on Trades Unions. G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, 1867. p. 225:
- Did you also employ them to ratten people if they had broken any rules of your society, for instance, by having too many apprentices?
- 1947, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, Say The Word, p 100: