Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A series of short sharp sounds, as that made by knocking on a door.
Wiktionary
- n. A series of short, sharp taps, especially made by knocking on a door, beating a drum, or firing an automatic weapon
WordNet 3.0
- n. a series of short sharp taps (as made by strokes on a drum or knocks on a door)
Etymologies
- Onomatopoeic. (Wiktionary)
- Imitative. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“What other character do you know of who is searingly brilliant, stunningly engaging in his rat-a-tat-tat conversational wizardly, totally and even smugly tactless and rude - and still adored?”
“The rent on Metro is great but it sure is hard to take a business call with the rat-a-tat-tat sound made by the bus crawling down the seemingly war-ravaged pavement of the Boulevard.”
The Huffington Post: Joel Epstein: Revolution, Democracy and the Subway in Beverly Hills
“First-person eyewitness testimony enables narrative history to rise above the rat-a-tat-tat chronology of an after-action report.”
“He acknowledges their thanks with a nod, and a rat-a-tat-tat of questions about their lives today.”
“I reckon Chis Ryan writes in this font, bashing it out on the keyboard, rat-a-tat-tat.”
The Guardian: Chris Ryan's Strike Back and Timothy Spall: Somewhere at Sea
“After her third knock, an insistent rat-a-tat-tat, she followed the path to the back of the villa.”
“His shoe was drumming a rat-a-tat-tat against the floor.”
“What other character do you know of who is searingly brilliant, stunningly engaging in his rat-a-tat-tat conversational wizardly, totally and even smugly tactless and rude -- and still adored?”
“If it isn't some daft descendant of the old 'Speed Racer' series on Saturday morning TV, it's commercials, music videos, video games, text messages, instant messages and, most recently, the rat-a-tat-tat of thoughtlets expressed in microblogs.”
Interpreting Speed Racer's Box Office Failure « FirstShowing.net
“As Ashton ran up them, he could hear the metal rat-a-tat-tat of people following him.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rat-a-tat-tat’.
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Hyphen Nation
Terms with multiple hyphens, such as rent-a-crowd. Not intended to be a see-how-many-words-one-can-string-together-with-hyphens-used-adjectively sort of list.
much-talked-of, vis-à-vis, tête-à-tête, rope-a-dope, will-o'-the-wisp, dick-a-tuesday, will-in-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern, jack-with-a-lantern, ear-to-ear, whack-a-mole, no-man's-land and 205 more...
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Rats
rats, rat, tree-rat, pilori-rat, prorate, pro rata, Ratso Rizzo, ratfink, rat pack, Rat Pack, Rats!, rat race and 157 more...
Tweets
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