rat run
rat run noun: a small, usually minor road used by a significant amount of traffic as a short cut or to avoid congestion on more major routes.
Noun
rat run (plural rat runs)
- A small, usually minor road used by a significant amount of traffic as a short cut or to avoid congestion on more major routes.
- This week Wykeham Street in Scarborough was named as the worst rat run in Britain. […] A ‘rat run’ sounds like some sort of charity jog by rodents keen to improve their image, but it is of course a side street that suffers from being heavily used by through-traffic as a short-cut.2007, John O'Farrell, I Have A Bream, Black Swan, →ISBN, page 43
Verb
rat run (third-person singular simple present rat runs, present participle rat running, simple past rat ran, past participle rat run)
- To drive through residential streets to avoid congestion on the main roads.
- Synonyms:
- divebomb
Synonyms of rat run
Forms of rat run
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | rat runs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | rat runs |
| present participle | rat running |
| past | rat ran |
| past participle | rat run |
Questions about rat run
- What does rat run mean?
- Rat run means a small, usually minor road used by a significant amount of traffic as a short cut or to avoid congestion on more major routes.
- What part of speech is rat run?
- Rat run can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of rat run?
- The plural of rat run is rat runs.
Words near rat run in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rat run (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rat run.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rat run.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rat_run. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.