Rats
nounMore than one rat; long-tailed rodents larger than mice.
How to spell rats
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce rats
What does rats mean?
- nounMore than one rat; long-tailed rodents larger than mice.
- interjectionA mild exclamation of annoyance or disappointment.
Rats in a sentence
-
noun
The old warehouse was overrun with rats after the grain spilled.
-
interjection
He muttered rats when the printer jammed again right before the deadline.
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noun
Pest control set traps because rats had nested behind the kitchen wall.
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interjection
She said rats on realising she had left her keys at the office.
Where does rats come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The singular 'rat' descends from Old English 'ræt', a word for the gnawing rodent that has close relatives across the West Germanic languages, including Dutch 'rat' and German 'Ratte'. Scholars suspect an even older common European root, though the trail is murky, and similar-sounding words appear in Latin and the Romance languages, which suggests early borrowing across the continent. The plural simply adds the regular '-s' ending, giving 'rats', which has been in continuous use for centuries. By the 1800s the plural was also pressed into service as a casual exclamation of mild irritation, a softened stand-in for stronger oaths. Spelling is straightforward because the word is short and phonetic; the only thing to watch is the single 't', since the vowel is short and tempts no doubling.
How the word is built
- rat (rodent)
- -s (plural)
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