Word.ws English Dictionary

rotter

rotter noun: a despicable, worthless person; a scoundrel.

Noun

rotter (plural rotters)

  1. (Australia, UK, slang) A despicable, worthless person; a scoundrel.
    • Calvin could be anywhere in this zoo. I hope he at least has the sense to stay put, wherever he is. Where would the little rotter go if he was lost and separated from his stuffed toy?1988 July 26, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic)
    • Some Johnny with brains produces a hypothesis. Everybody calls him a rotter at first. But he remains calm in the face of opprobrium.1908 August, George A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter VII, in Spanish Gold, 2nd edition, London: Methuen & Co. […], published September 1908, →OCLC, page 76

Proper noun capitalized: Rotter

Rotter (plural Rotters)

  1. A surname from German.

rotter meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

rotter in Tamil

மதிப்பற்ற, அல்லது கண்டனத்துக்குரிய நபர்

rotter in Urdu

نکما

rotter in Bengali

একজন ঘৃণ্য, মূল্যহীন ব্যক্তি, একজন দুশ্চরিত্র লোক

rotter in Malayalam

scoundrel, miscreant, rogue
അധമൻ, നീചൻ, ധവൻ, തെമ്മാടി, മുള്ളൻ, ആഭാസൻ

Forms of rotter

Noun
pluralrotters
Proper noun
pluralRotters

Origin of rotter

From rot + -er.

* As a German surname, variant of Rother. * Also as a German surname, from Middle High German rotte (“gang, team”) (see modern rotten (“to gang up”)). * As a Slovene surname, Americanized or Germanized from Rotar, from dialectal rote (“clearing in the uplands”), itself from Old High German rût; see modern roden (“to clear land”). * As an English surname, variant of Rutter.

Words that rhyme with rotter

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rotter

What does rotter mean?
Rotter means a despicable, worthless person; a scoundrel.
What is rotter in Tamil?
Rotter in Tamil is மதிப்பற்ற, அல்லது கண்டனத்துக்குரிய நபர். See Rotter meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is rotter?
Rotter can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of rotter?
The plural of rotter is rotters.

Words near rotter in the dictionary

  1. rottennesses
  2. rottenstone
  3. rottenstoned
  4. rottenstones
  5. rottenstoning
  6. rotter
  7. Rotterdam
  8. Rotterdammer
  9. Rotterdammers
  10. rotters
  11. rottest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rotter (page history and authors); Rotter (page history and authors); rotter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rotter (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rotter (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rotter (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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: En-au-rotter.ogg.

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