Word.ws English Dictionary

quat

/kwɒt/US/kwɑt/

quat noun: a pustule. Also the alternative spelling of khat.

Noun (1)

quat (plural quats)

  1. (obsolete) A pustule.
  2. (obsolete) An annoying, worthless person.
    • I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense, And he grows angry.1565, William Shakespeare, Othello

Verb

quat (third-person singular simple present quats, present participle quatting, simple past and past participle quatted)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To satiate.
    • Mrs. Cad. Well, come, begin and ſtart me, that I may come the ſooner to quatting——Huſh ! here′s Siſter ; what the deuce brought her !1757, Samuel Foote, The Author, Act II, Scene ii, 1765, The Dramatic Works, Volume 1, page 28
  2. (Scotland, dialectal, transitive) To relinquish, forsake, give up.
    • Ye hae grown proud since ye quatted the begging. — Scottish proverb, said satirically.
    • 'Mang mis'ry's posts, whar I did sit, My tongue took sic a faltrin' fit, I thought the wee remains o' wit I had, was quat me1813, Hugh Porter, Poetical attempts, page 35
  3. (dialectal, intransitive, Wales and Southwest England) To squat or crouch down.
    • Tho' B-lt-n, quatted in the hall, Her jolly r-mpfs display'd, The size of it amaz'd them all, and Hector quite dismay'd.1700, Ta Paidia Tēs Kythereias; Or, King's Place In An Uproar, page 10
    • This cows' courant so excited the tinners' curiosity that they went up the hill till they saw the two men wrestling, with the women looking on; then they quatted (stooped) down in a brake of furze to watch the play without being seen.1870, William Bottrell, Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall

Adjective (1)

quat (not comparable)

  1. (Scotland, dialectal) Free; no longer involved with; quit.
    • My word, I gie him nae encouragement ! I canna bide the sicht o' him, and wad gie the best gown I hae to be quat o' him."1838, Chambers's Journal, page 134
    • There it is, sir—Im blythe to be quat of it; pitch it from ye furder than I can see.1861, Mrs. Oliphant, The House on the Moor

Noun (2)

quat (plural quats)

  1. A quaternary ammonium cation or compound.
    • “Because quats are positively charged, and skin proteins have a slightly negative charge, quats like to attach themselves to skin,” said Greg Nole, a manager at Unilever, the parent company of Vaseline and Dove.2009 October 1, Hilary Howard, “New Ways to Moisturize for Less”, in The New York Times

Adjective (2)

quat (not comparable)

  1. Quaternary.

Noun (3) capitalized: QUAT

QUAT (plural QUATs)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of quat (“quaternary ammonium”).

Also used as

quat is also the alternative spelling of khat.

Examples of quat in a sentence

  • They seem to our ears indeed to have "quat their roaring play."1868, John Wilson, Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2:
  • Tarka quatted on the ledge ; he knew that Deadlock would follow hiin wherever he swam in water.1927, Henry William Williamson, Tarka the Otter, Chapter 19:
  • She quatted down next to him and rubbed his shoulder.2013, R. M. Lienau, The Truchas Light: A Novel, →ISBN, page 155:
  • HECH me, but I'm weary, I'm heart-sick and sad ; O' my kinsfolk I've got quite a wamefu', I wush I was quat o' the d — nable squad — Forgi'e me for sweerin' sae shamefu'.1895, William Stewart, Lilts and Larks Frae Larkie, page 177:

Forms of quat

Noun
pluralquats
pluralQUATs
Verb
third-person singular presentquats
present participlequatting
past participlequatted
pastquatted

Origin of quat

Clipping of quaternary.

See khat.

Words formed from quat

Words that rhyme with quat

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about quat

What does quat mean?
Quat means a pustule.
How do you use quat in a sentence?
They seem to our ears indeed to have "quat their roaring play."
What part of speech is quat?
Quat can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce quat?
Quat is pronounced /kwɒt/ (UK).
What is the plural of quat?
The plural of quat is quats.

Words near quat in the dictionary

  1. quassinoids
  2. quassins
  3. quassite
  4. Quast
  5. Quasts
  6. quat
  7. quata
  8. quatacaine
  9. Quatannens
  10. quatas
  11. Quatavious

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quat (page history and authors); QUAT (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-quat.wav.

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