Fatty

How to spell fatty

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fatty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fatty mean?

1. adjectiveContaining or consisting of a large amount of fat.

Fatty in a sentence

• The doctor advised her to cut down on fatty foods.

• A fatty cut of meat tends to stay juicy when roasted.

Where does fatty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the adjective 'fat', which descends from the Old English 'fǣtt', meaning 'fattened' or 'plump', originally a past participle of a verb for stuffing or cramming an animal full before slaughter. The base sat alongside related Germanic forms such as the Dutch 'vet' and the German 'fett', all carrying the sense of greasy richness. The familiar -y suffix, also of native Germanic origin, turns nouns and adjectives into adjectives meaning 'full of' or 'characterised by', so 'fatty' simply means 'full of fat'. When that -y was added the single 't' was doubled, following the regular English rule that a short stressed vowel before a single final consonant doubles that consonant before a suffix; that doubling is the only real spelling point to watch. By the 1500s 'fatty' was established as an everyday descriptive word, and centuries later it also picked up an informal use as a blunt nickname for a heavy person.

How the word is built

• fat (Old English fǣtt)
• -y (adjective-forming suffix, with the final consonant doubled)