Word.ws English Dictionary

rattings

rattings is the plural of ratting.

Meaning of ratting

Noun

ratting (usually uncountable, plural rattings)

  1. (archaic, usually) The blood sport of setting a dog upon rats confined in a pit to see how many he will kill in a given time.
    • Henry Mayhew, the nineteenth-century chronicler of London's underworld, described the frenzied activity of one ratting contest. A terrier — the best of ratting dogs — was placed into a pit with 50 rats.1993, Ronald H. Fritze, James Stuart Olson, Randy Roberts, Reflections on World Civilization: A Reader, volume 2, page 102
    Synonyms:
    rat-baiting
  2. (usually) A vocation involving the pest control of rats, typically using a working terrier.
  3. (usually) Desertion of one's principles.
  4. (usually) Working as a scab, against trade union policies.

Questions about rattings

What is rattings the plural of?
Rattings is the plural of ratting.

Words near rattings in the dictionary

  1. ratting cap
  2. ratting caps
  3. ratting on
  4. ratting out
  5. ratting through
  6. rattings
  7. rattis
  8. rattish
  9. rattishly
  10. rattishness
  11. rattle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rattings (page history and authors); ratting (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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