pat

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to touch lightly with a flat hand; also exactly apt or glib

   She gave the dog a gentle pat on the head.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Pat, first recorded in late Middle English for a blow with something flat, probably imitates the sound of the blow. Its late 16th-century meaning “readily,” also found in phrases such as “have something off pat,” was probably originally the same word. Early examples often use “hit pat,” as if striking with the hand. In Australian “on your pat,” meaning “on your own,” pat shortens the rhyming slang Pat Malone, “alone.”

Late Middle English, probably of imitative origin, representing the sound of a light slap or tap; the adjectival sense 'exactly to the point, glib' developed later from the notion of hitting precisely.

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