Word.ws English Dictionary

Hanoverian rat

Hanoverian rat noun: the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus.

Noun

Hanoverian rat (plural Hanoverian rats)

  1. The brown rat, Rattus norvegicus.

Forms of Hanoverian rat

pluralHanoverian rats

Origin of Hanoverian rat

The name was introduced by English naturalist Charles Waterton, a devout Catholic, as a slur on Protestant Hanoverians whose British rule began in 1714, shortly before the species first appeared in Britain.

Questions about Hanoverian rat

What does Hanoverian rat mean?
Hanoverian rat means the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus.
What part of speech is Hanoverian rat?
Hanoverian rat is a noun.
What is the plural of Hanoverian rat?
The plural of Hanoverian rat is Hanoverian rats.

Words near Hanoverian rat in the dictionary

  1. Hanover County
  2. Hanover Park
  3. Hanover rat
  4. Hanover rats
  5. Hanoverian
  6. Hanoverian rat
  7. Hanoverian rats
  8. Hanoverians
  9. Hanrahan
  10. Hanrahans
  11. Hanratty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Hanoverian rat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Hanoverian rat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hanoverian_rat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.