Word.ws English Dictionary

rats

/ɹæts/

rats is the plural of rat.

rats is the third-person singular simple present indicative of rat.

Interjection

(informal)

  1. (informal) An expression of annoyance or disgust; damn, darn.
    Synonyms:
    nuggets
  2. (informal) An expression of disbelief.
    • "It's damned clever — fair puzzles 'em every time. How d'ye get them?"
      "I tell you I don't. It's outside myself."
      "Rats! You can tell me, Tom. I'm Griffiths, the safe man."1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019

Meaning of rat

Noun

rat (plural rats)

  1. Any of the numerous members of several rodent families that usually have short limbs, a pointy snout, a long, hairless tail, and a body length greater than about 12 cm, or 5 inches.
  2. A medium-sized rodent belonging to the genus Rattus.
    • Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200
  3. (informal) A person who is known for betrayal.
    • Near-synonyms: rouge, scoundrel, snake; see also Thesaurus:villain
  4. (informal) An informant or snitch.
  5. (informal) A scab: a worker who acts against trade union policies.
  6. (slang) A person who routinely spends time at a particular location.
    • Our teenager has become a mall rat.

See all 23 meanings of rat

Noun capitalized: RATs

RATs

  1. (plural) plural of RAT

Synonyms of rats

Phrases with rats

114 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with rats

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rats

What does rats mean?
Rats means an expression of annoyance or disgust; damn, darn.
What is rats the plural of?
Rats is the plural of rat.
What part of speech is rats?
Rats can be an interjection or a noun.
How do you pronounce rats?
Rats is pronounced /ɹæts/.

Words near rats in the dictionary

  1. ratos
  2. ratpack
  3. ratpacks
  4. ratpox
  5. ratproof
  6. rats
  7. rats in a granary
  8. rats in granaries
  9. rats on
  10. rats out
  11. rats through

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rats (page history and authors); RATs (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rats.wav.

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