Word.ws English Dictionary

spats

/spæts/

spats noun: a stiff legging worn over the instep and ankles of a shoe. Also the plural of spat.

spats: a stiff legging worn over the instep and ankles of a shoe
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

spats pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A stiff legging worn over the instep and ankles of a shoe.
  2. (plural, plural-only) A similar device for horses.
  3. (plural, plural-only) Long hair on front of lower legs of heavier horses (over the hooves), especially draft horses, notably the Clydesdale breed.
  4. (plural, plural-only) Form-fitting shorts covering the waist to mid- or lower thigh usually worn for athletic events; compression shorts.

Also used as

spats is also the plural of spat.

spats is also the third-person singular simple present indicative of spat.

Antonyms of spats

Origin of spats

Clipping of spatterdashes.

Words that rhyme with spats

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about spats

What does spats mean?
Spats means a stiff legging worn over the instep and ankles of a shoe.
What part of speech is spats?
Spats is a noun.
How do you pronounce spats?
Spats is pronounced /spæts/.

Words near spats in the dictionary

  1. spatious
  2. spatiously
  3. spatiousness
  4. Spatola
  5. Spatolas
  6. spats
  7. spatted
  8. spatter
  9. spatter cone
  10. spatter cones
  11. spatterdash

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spats (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-spats.wav.

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