rabbit

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small furry animal with long ears and a short tail that lives in burrows.

   A wild rabbit hopped across the field and disappeared into the bushes.

2. 2
   noun

   The meat of this animal, eaten as food.

   My grandmother used to cook rabbit stew on cold winter days.

3. 3
   verb

   To talk on and on about unimportant things.

   Stop rabbiting on and tell me what actually happened.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Rabbit is first recorded in the late 14th century, initially as a name especially for a young rabbit. Its origin is uncertain, but it appears to have entered English from Old French and is related to dialectal French rabotte, “young rabbit”; it may ultimately be Dutch and connected with Flemish robbei, “rabbit.” In the mid-20th-century phrase rabbit on, the word comes through rhyming slang rabbit and pork, meaning “talk.”

From Middle English rabet, rabette, from Anglo-Latin rabettus, from dialectal Old French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (“rabbit, seal”), of uncertain origin; possibly some imitative verb, maybe robben, rubben (“to rub”) is used here to allude to a characteristic of the animal. See rub. Related forms include Middle French rabouillet (“baby rabbit”) and in French rabot (“plane”)), coming via Walloon Old French (reflected nowadays as Walloon robète (“rabbit”)), from Middle Dutch robbe ("rabbit; seal"; whence Modern Dutch rob (“rabbit", also "seal”)); also Mi…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary