ratter

C2+ Topic:Animals

US /ˈrætɚ/ UK /ˈrætə/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a dog or other animal that hunts and kills rats

The terrier was a fierce ratter, clearing the barn within a week.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a dog or other animal that... ratcatcher terriermouser

Word family

Related forms rat ratting

Etymology

From rat + -er; rat is from Old English ræt, of Germanic origin, related to Dutch rat and German Ratte.

ræt Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Animals Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# ratter

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈrætɚ/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈrætə/

## Meanings
1. a dog or other animal that hunts and kills rats

## Examples
- The terrier was a fierce ratter, clearing the barn within a week.

## Synonyms
- ratcatcher
- terrier
- mouser

## Related Forms
- rat
- ratting

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: ræt

## Etymology
From rat + -er; rat is from Old English ræt, of Germanic origin, related to Dutch rat and German Ratte.

## AI Etymology
Ratter comes from rat + -er; rat is from Old English ræt, of Germanic origin, related to Dutch rat and German Ratte. The historical chain includes Old English ræt. Morphologically, ratter is best read as compound, suffixal formation, and borrowing, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "a dog or other animal that hunts and kills rats". related forms include rat and ratting. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Animals
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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