hat

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an informal term for a person's role

   They took off their politician's hat and talked frankly.

2. 2
   verb

   to put on or wear a hat

   I was unsuitably hatted.

3. 3
   noun

   A covering for the head, often in the approximate form of a cone, dome or cylinder closed at its top end, and sometimes having a brim and other decoration.

   There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

4. 4
   noun

   A particular role or capacity that a person might fill.

   It's all a matter of hats, Minister.

5. 5
   noun

   A hat switch.

   The third type of function allows you to check on the state of the joystick's buttons, axes, hats, and balls.

6. 6
   noun

   The háček symbol.

   I’lll have to leave it up to antiques experts to tell you when objects were marked that way, but I can tell you it’s called a “hacek” (with the hat over the “c” and pronounced “hacheck”.) It is used to show that a “c” is pronounced as “ch” and an “s” as “sh.” Sometimes linguists just call it the “hat.”

7. 7
   noun

   A student who is also the son of a nobleman (and so allowed to wear a hat instead of a mortarboard).

   I knew intimately all the 'Hats' in the University, and I was henceforth looked up to by the 'Caps,' as if my head had gained the height of every hat that I knew.

8. 8
   verb

   To place a hat on.

   After the maids had hatted and gloved the girls, the carriage was summoned and I was carted around one church after another.

Etymology

From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), perhaps from a late PIE root Proto-Indo-European *kedʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”) or wanderwort. Cognate with North Frisian hat (“hat”), Danish hat (“hat”), Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“hat”), Finnish hattu (“hat”), Latin cassis (“helmet”), Lithuanian kudas (“bird's crest or tuft”), Avestan 𐬑𐬀𐬊𐬛𐬀 (xaoda, “hat”), Persian خود (xud, “helmet”), Welsh cadw (“to provide for, ensure”). Compare also hood.