ratton
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English ratoun, from Anglo-Norman ratoun and Middle French raton, corresponding to rat + -oon.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
ratton (plural rattons)
- (now Northern England, Scotland, Ireland) A rat. [from 14th c.]
- 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:
- 'A Yorkshire burr,' he affirmed, 'was as much better than a cockney's lisp as a bull's bellow than a ratton’s squeak.'
- 1873, Richard Morris, Walter William Skeat, “Glossarial Index”, in Specimens of Early English[1], volumes II: From Robert of Gloucester to Gower, A.D. 1298—A.D. 1393, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 490:
- To dark is still used in Swaledale (Yorkshire) in the sense of to lie hid, as, 'Te rattens [rats] mun ha bin darkin whel nu [till now]; we hannot heerd tem tis last fortnith'.