ratty

English
WOTD – 13 March 2022

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɹæti/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɹæti/, [-ɾi]
  • Audio (GA)(file)
  • Rhymes: -æti
  • Hyphenation: rat‧ty

Etymology 1

From rat +‎ -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjective).[1]

Adjective

ratty (comparative rattier, superlative rattiest)

  1. Resembling or characteristic of a rat; ratlike.
    Synonym: rattish
  2. Infested with rats.
  3. (figuratively, informal)
    1. In poor condition or repair.
      Synonyms: battered, tattered, tatty, torn, worn out
      • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter IX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 78:
        We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher knife without any handle, and a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bed-quilt off the bed, […] and just as we were leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg.
      • 2000, George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords, Bantam, published 2011, page 535:
        The Marcher lord was still clad in his ratty black cloak and dented breastplate with its chipped enamel lightning.
      • 2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador, published 2007, page 80:
        I was having exactly that thought on a ratty mock-leather couch in Islington.
    2. (Australia) Crazy, mad; ridiculous; slightly strange, eccentric; also (followed by about, on, or over), attracted to, infatuated with.
    3. (originally British) Annoyed, bad-tempered, irritable.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:annoyed, Thesaurus:irritable
      • 2009, Ian McDonald, River of Gods:
        He got bad, he got ratty, he would take it out on people around him. He was mean when it turned against him.
Derived terms
Translations
in poor condition or repair — see tattered
crazy, mad — see crazy,‎ mad
ridiculous — see ridiculous
slightly strange — see eccentric
attracted to, infatuated with — see infatuated
annoyed, bad-tempered, irritable — see annoyed

References
  1. “ratty, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2021; “ratty, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Noun

ratty (uncountable)

  1. Synonym of knock down ginger (“prank of knocking on a front door and running away”)

Anagrams
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