Word.ws English Dictionary

ratton

UK/ˈɹatən/

ratton noun: a rat.

Noun

ratton (plural rattons)

  1. (Ireland, Northern England, Scotland) 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
    • To dark is still used in Swaledale (Yorkshire) in the sense of to lie hid, as, 'Te rattens [rats] mun ha bin darkin whel nu [till now]; we hannot heerd tem tis last fortnith'.1873, Richard Morris, Walter William Skeat, “Glossarial Index”, in Specimens of Early English, volumes II: From Robert of Gloucester to Gower, A.D. 1298—A.D. 1393, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 490

Forms of ratton

pluralrattons
alternative form (rare)ratten

Origin of ratton

From Middle English ratoun, from Anglo-Norman ratoun and Middle French raton, corresponding to rat + -oon.

Questions about ratton

What does ratton mean?
Ratton means a rat.
What part of speech is ratton?
Ratton is a noun.
How do you pronounce ratton?
Ratton is pronounced /ˈɹatən/ (UK).
What is the plural of ratton?
The plural of ratton is rattons.

Words near ratton in the dictionary

  1. rattlins
  2. rattly
  3. ratto
  4. Rattok
  5. Rattoks
  6. ratton
  7. rattoner
  8. rattons
  9. rattoon
  10. rattooned
  11. rattooning

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

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