Synonyms for rat

Grammar : Noun

Spell : rat

Phonetic Transcription : ræt

Top 10 synonyms for rat

Other synonyms for the word rat

Définition of rat

Origin : late Old English ræt "rat," of uncertain origin. Similar words are found in Celtic (Gaelic radan), Romanic (Italian ratto, Spanish rata, French rat) and Germanic (Old Saxon ratta; Dutch rat; German Ratte, dialectal Ratz; Swedish råtta, Danish rotte) languages, but connection is uncertain and origin unknown. In all this it is very much like cat.
Perhaps from Vulgar Latin *rattus, but Weekley thinks this is of Germanic origin, "the animal having come from the East with the race-migrations" and the word passing thence to the Romanic languages. American Heritage and Tucker connect Old English ræt to Latin rodere and thus PIE *red- "to scrape, scratch, gnaw," source of rodent (q.v.). Klein says there is no such connection and suggests a possible cognate in Greek rhine "file, rasp." Weekley connects them with a question mark and Barnhart writes, "the relationship to each other of the Germanic, Romance, and Celtic words for rat is uncertain." OED says "probable" the rat word spread from Germanic to Romanic, but takes no position on ultimate origin.
RATS. Of these there are the following kinds: a black rat and a grey rat, a py-rat and a cu-rat. ["Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," Grose, 1788]
Middle English common form was ratton, from augmented Old French form raton. Sense of "one who abandons his associates" (1620s) is from belief that rats leave a ship about to sink or a house about to fall and led to meaning "traitor, informant" (1902; verb 1910). Interjection rats is American English, 1886. To smell a rat is 1540s; "to be put on the watch by suspicion as the cat by the scent of a rat; to suspect danger" [Johnson]. _____-rat, "person who frequents _____" (in earliest reference dock-rat) is from 1864.

noun informer

Example sentences :

Mr. COX said he could not smelt a pig, but he thought he smelt a rat.
Extract from : « Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 » by Various

Was the occupant a rat or a skunk, and if so, what was he going to do?
Extract from : « A Woman Tenderfoot » by Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

I suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat—that's a bore.
Extract from : « Night and Morning, Complete » by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Not a rat could have crawled out since we came, nor could one have gone in.
Extract from : « It Happened in Egypt » by C. N. Williamson

So, he got the copper and the nails and the pot and the rat that could speak, and the Devil vanished.
Extract from : « The Uncommercial Traveller » by Charles Dickens

Report says also that he has the instinct of a rat in quitting a falling house.
Extract from : « Tales And Novels, Volume 9 (of 10) » by Maria Edgeworth

If you have a mind to rat, rat sans phrase, and run over to the Jewish side.
Extract from : « Tales And Novels, Volume 9 (of 10) » by Maria Edgeworth

But what if he should smell a rat, and want to be looking into my affairs?
Extract from : « Tales And Novels, Volume 8 (of 10) » by Maria Edgeworth

As soon as I judged her safe in bed, I dropped the rat with a plump.
Extract from : « Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood » by George MacDonald

I laughed in my sleeve, thinking how little her cat could protect her from my rat.
Extract from : « Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood » by George MacDonald

Based on : Thesaurus.com - Gutenberg.org - Dictionary.com - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019