rat

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“
These strange supersized cousins of the rat are as big as a large dog.

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Definitions (54)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. noun Any of various long-tailed rodents resembling mice but larger, especially one of the genus Rattus.
  2. noun Any of various animals similar to one of these long-tailed rodents.
  3. noun Slang A despicable person, especially one who betrays or informs upon associates.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (32)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • Rapp smelled a rat, and the rat was Khalil Muhammad. —  ConsenttoKill
  • She agreed that a rat was a rat, but this particular rat, their rat, was a pet. —  F ;SF - vol 099 issue 03 - September 2000
  • Yet the word rat was a poor description for the mud-slick creature before him. —  Wit'ch's Storm
  • The rat was an exceptionally bright rat, but, of course, it was just a rat, and so it didn't have the words, or the concepts that grew from the words, to articulate the feelings that roiled within it. —  FSF,December2005
  • The township claims the union's use of the rat is a form of commercial speech and is less deserving of First Amendment protections. —  News for WSLS 10
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

mouse ·  rabbit ·  cat ·  snake ·  pig ·  wolf ·  dog ·  monkey ·  insect ·  lizard ·  spider ·  frog

Used in the same contextWord Family

rat:   rats
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English ræt; see rēd- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. Formerly also ratt; from ME, ratte, rotte, plural rattes, from Anglo-Saxon ræt (rætt-) =Middle Dutch ratte, Dutch rat =Old Low German ratta, Middle Low German ratte, Low German ratte, also rat, rot =Old High German rata, masculine, ratta, feminine, Middle High German rat, rate, masculine, ratte, rate, feminine, Middle High German also ratz, ratze, German ratze, masculine, =Icelandic rotta =Swedish råtta =Dan, rotte, a rat; cf. F. Provencal rat =Spanish Portuguese rato =Italian ratto =Middle Latin ratus, rattus; cf. also Irish Gael, radan, Breton raz, a rat. The relations of the Teutonic, Roman, and Celtic groups to one another, and the ult. source of the word, are unknown. Some refer the word to the root seen in L. radere, scratch, scrape (see rase, razel), rodere, gnaw (see rodent). The forms of the word cat are equally wide-spread.
  2. from rat, n.
  3. Usually in plural rats, from Middle English rattes, rags; either from the verb, Middle English ratten, tear (see rat, v.), or from Icelandic hrat, hrati, rubbish, trash, =Norwegian rat, rubbish: cf. Swedish Norwegian rata, reject, refuse (see rate).
  4. from Middle English ratten =Middle High German ratzen, tear; cf. rat, n.
  5. Prob. a variant of rot; cf. drat, in similar use.
 

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/ræt/
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