ratten
ratten is the alternative form of ratton.
Meaning of ratton
Noun
ratton (plural rattons)
- A rat.
- “A Yorkshire burr,” he affirmed, “was as much better than a Cockney’s lisp, as a bull's bellow than a ratton’s squeak.”1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Mr. Yorke (continued)”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 67
Verb
ratten (third-person singular simple present rattens, present participle rattening, simple past and past participle rattened)
- To sabotage machinery or tools as part of an industrial dispute, particularly the tools of a workman who went against the union.
- Did you also employ them to ratten people if they had broken any rules of your society, for instance, by having too many apprentices?1867, Report Presented to the Trades Unions Commissioners by the Examiners Appointed to Inquire Into Acts of Intimidation, Outrage, Or Wrong Alleged to Have Been Promoted, Encouraged, Or Connived at...
- […] derived from the sabot or shoe beneath railway lines. The saboteur was thus a remover of metal shoes, a train-wrecker. I must leave it at that. Meanwhile why not restore ratten to its old place in the Trade Union vocabulary, that is if, in these times of scant, we must endure any such wanton...1947, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, Say The Word, page 100
Forms of ratten
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | rattens |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | rattens |
| present participle | rattening |
| past participle | rattened |
| past | rattened |
Origin of ratten
The verbal sense is from the notion of causing mischief like a rat.
Questions about ratten
- What does ratten mean?
- Ratten means to sabotage machinery or tools as part of an industrial dispute, particularly the tools of a workman who went against the union.
- What is ratten the alternative form of?
- Ratten is the alternative form of ratton.
- What part of speech is ratten?
- Ratten is a verb.
- What is the past tense of ratten?
- The past tense of ratten is rattened.
Words near ratten in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ratten (page history and authors); ratton (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: “ratten.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ratten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.