rit

/ˈɹɪt/

rit noun: a scratch, a score or a groove. Also the abbreviation of ritardando.

Noun (1)

rit (plural rits)

(Northern England, Scotland) A scratch, a score or a groove.

Verb

rit (third-person singular simple present rits, present participle ritting, simple past and past participle ritted)

(Northern England, Scotland) To scratch or score.
(Northern England, Scotland) To tear, rip, rend.
(Northern England, Scotland) To slit.

Noun (2) capitalized: RIT

RIT (plural RITs)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of rapid intervention team.

Also used as

rit is also the abbreviation of ritardando.

Forms of rit

Noun
plural	rits
alternative form	ritt
alternative form	ret
plural	RITs
Verb
third-person singular present	rits
present participle	ritting
past participle	ritted
past	ritted

Plural of rit: rits

Origin of rit

From Middle English ritten (“to cut, score, slit, tear”), from Old English *rittan (“to cut, score, slit, tear,”) (compare Old High German rizzen), from Proto-West Germanic *rittjan, from Proto-Germanic *ritjaną (“to cut, scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *wrid-néh₂-; see *hrītaną. Cognate with Middle Low German ritten (“to scratch”), German ritzen (“to scratch”). Compare with Proto-Slavic *rězati (“to cut, carve, engrave”)). See also rat.

Words formed from rit

torit

Words that rhyme with rit

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rit

What does rit mean?: Rit means a scratch, a score or a groove.
What part of speech is rit?: Rit can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce rit?: Rit is pronounced /ˈɹɪt/.
What is the plural of rit?: The plural of rit is rits.

Words near rit in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: rit (page history and authors); RIT (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: 2026-09-02

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