Word.ws English Dictionary

rat-baiting

rat-baiting noun: a blood sport involving the setting of dogs upon rats in a rat pit.

Noun

rat-baiting (countable and uncountable, plural rat-baitings)

  1. A blood sport involving the setting of dogs upon rats in a rat pit.
    • His sporting enthusiasms had already embraced yachting, coaching, fencing, and spectatorship at boxing-matches, cock-fights, dog-fights, and rat-baitings.1937, Dixon Wecter, The Saga of American Society
    Synonyms:
    ratting

Synonyms of rat-baiting

Forms of rat-baiting

pluralrat-baitings

Origin of rat-baiting

From rat + baiting.

Questions about rat-baiting

What does rat-baiting mean?
Rat-baiting means a blood sport involving the setting of dogs upon rats in a rat pit.
What part of speech is rat-baiting?
Rat-baiting is a noun.
What is the plural of rat-baiting?
The plural of rat-baiting is rat-baitings.

Words near rat-baiting in the dictionary

  1. rat-a-tat
  2. rat-a-tat-tat
  3. rat-a-tat-tats
  4. rat-a-tats
  5. rat-arsed
  6. rat-baiting
  7. rat-baitings
  8. rat-bastard
  9. rat-bastards
  10. rat-bite fever
  11. rat-catcher

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rat-baiting (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.

Last updated:

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