Word.ws English Dictionary

tatter

/ˈtætə(ɹ)/

tatter noun: a shred of torn cloth; an individual item of torn and ragged clothing.

Noun (1)

tatter (plural tatters)

  1. A shred of torn cloth; an individual item of torn and ragged clothing.
    • You can’t – you shan’t – you don’t – you won’t – you thing of rag and tatter, O!1896, “Well You're a Pretty Kind of Fellow”, William S. Gilbert (lyrics), Sir Arthur Sullivan (music)

Verb (1)

tatter (third-person singular simple present tatters, present participle tattering, simple past and past participle tattered)

  1. (transitive) To destroy an article of clothing etc. by shredding.
  2. (intransitive) To fall into tatters.

Noun (2)

tatter (plural tatters)

  1. A person engaged in tatting.

Verb (2)

tatter (third-person singular simple present tatters, present participle tattering, simple past and past participle tattered)

  1. (Ireland, dialectal) To go at great speed.
    • “Well, away they wint tattherin’ along the road, makin’ the fire fly out o’ the stones at no rate. So whin I seen they'd no eyes, I knew it was onpossible they could ivir see me, so up I got out o’ the ditch, and afther thim wid me along the road as fast as ivir I culd lay fut to ground.”1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 520

tatter meaning in Tamil and Urdu

tatter in Tamil

கந்தல்

tatter in Urdu

چیتھڑا, چیتھڑے کرنا

Forms of tatter

Noun
pluraltatters
Verb
third-person singular presenttatters
present participletattering
past participletattered
pasttattered

Origin of tatter

From Middle English tater, from Old Norse tǫturr, from Proto-Germanic *tat(t)uraz (“tuft, patch”). Cognate with Icelandic tötur (“rag, tatter”).

From tat + -er.

From tat (“origin unknown”) + -er (“frequentative suffix”). Compare tattle.

Words formed from tatter

Words that rhyme with tatter

10 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tatter

What does tatter mean?
Tatter means a shred of torn cloth; an individual item of torn and ragged clothing.
What is tatter in Tamil?
Tatter in Tamil is கந்தல். See Tatter meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is tatter?
Tatter can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce tatter?
Tatter is pronounced /ˈtætə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of tatter?
The plural of tatter is tatters.

Words near tatter in the dictionary

  1. tattee
  2. tattees
  3. Tattenhall
  4. Tattenhall and District
  5. Tattenham Corner
  6. tatter
  7. tatterara
  8. tatterdemalion
  9. tatterdemalionism
  10. tatterdemalions
  11. tattered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tatter (page history and authors); tatter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tatter (Urdu Wiktionary) (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)-Vealhurl-tatter.wav.

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