brat
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: brăt
ipa: /bɹæt/
rhymes: -æt
Forms: form: brats
Etymology: Early Modern English (c. 1500) slang term meaning "beggar's child". Possibly from Scots bratchet (“bitch, hound”). Another possibility is that it was originally a dialectal word, from northern and western England and the Midlands, for a "makeshift or ragged garment," from Old English bratt (“cloak”), which is from a Celtic source (Old Irish brat (“cloak, cloth”)). In the sense "characteristic of a confident and assertive woman", coined by English singer and songwriter Charli XCX in her 2024 album Brat.
Senses: examples: text: "So... you want to have kids someday?" "Uh... well, yes. I always figured I'd have a couple brats of my own someday..." "That's still doable, you know." "I know, but the process is a lot more complicated and less intimate, and --"
ref: 2012 March 2, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Friday, Mar 2, 2012:
synonyms: word: bairn
word: brat
word: child
word: chit
word: crumb cruncher
word: crumb crusher
word: crumb grinder
word: crumb snatcher
word: fry
word: juvenile
word: kid
word: kiddie
word: little one
word: minor
word: mini-me
word: moppet
word: munchkin
word: nipper
word: slip
word: small fry
word: sprog
word: sprout
word: tart
word: tot
word: tyke
word: youngling
word: youngster
word: young'un
word: youth
word: crib lizard
word: crotch critter
word: crotch dropping
word: crotch fruit
word: crotch goblin
word: crotch monkey
word: crotchling
word: cum cheese
word: cum pet
word: cunt dropping
word: fucklet
word: fuck trophy
word: hump dumpling
word: pet sperm
word: semen demon
word: shitling
word: sperm blossom
word: sperm buttercup
word: sperm bubbles
word: bitchling
word: terence
glosses: A human child.
examples: text: a spoiled brat
text: Get that little brat away from me!
text: He would never speak a word, - only eat and cry, and she hadn't the heart to strike it or illtreat the youngster either; but somebody taught her a charm to make him speak, and then she found out what kind of a brat he really was.
ref: 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 297:
synonyms: word: bairn
word: brat
word: child
word: chit
word: crumb cruncher
word: crumb crusher
word: crumb grinder
word: crumb snatcher
word: fry
word: juvenile
word: kid
word: kiddie
word: little one
word: minor
word: mini-me
word: moppet
word: munchkin
word: nipper
word: slip
word: small fry
word: sprog
word: sprout
word: tart
word: tot
word: tyke
word: youngling
word: youngster
word: young'un
word: youth
word: crib lizard
word: crotch critter
word: crotch dropping
word: crotch fruit
word: crotch goblin
word: crotch monkey
word: crotchling
word: cum cheese
word: cum pet
word: cunt dropping
word: fucklet
word: fuck trophy
word: hump dumpling
word: pet sperm
word: semen demon
word: shitling
word: sperm blossom
word: sperm buttercup
word: sperm bubbles
word: bitchling
word: terence
glosses: A human child.
A child who is regarded as mischievous, unruly, spoiled, or selfish.
examples: text: Here are the people and the styles at the DNC that embodied the brat ethos.
ref: 2024 August 23, Lauren Bulbin, Annaliese Nurnberg, “The best brat styles of DNC”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 23 Aug 2024:
text: Brat is being lazy until 10 P.M., at which point you construct a château using discarded scraps of pleather, finish it by morning, and immediately win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
ref: 2024 August 26, Lena Dunham, “A Guide to Brat Summer”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Aug 2024:
text: My favorite touch is how each of her Nike shoes has its own little bow, which is just the perfect amount of brat.
ref: 2024 August 27, Brooke LaMantia, “Naomi Osaka Is Having a Brat U.S. Open”, in The Cut, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2024:
synonyms: word: bairn
word: brat
word: child
word: chit
word: crumb cruncher
word: crumb crusher
word: crumb grinder
word: crumb snatcher
word: fry
word: juvenile
word: kid
word: kiddie
word: little one
word: minor
word: mini-me
word: moppet
word: munchkin
word: nipper
word: slip
word: small fry
word: sprog
word: sprout
word: tart
word: tot
word: tyke
word: youngling
word: youngster
word: young'un
word: youth
word: crib lizard
word: crotch critter
word: crotch dropping
word: crotch fruit
word: crotch goblin
word: crotch monkey
word: crotchling
word: cum cheese
word: cum pet
word: cunt dropping
word: fucklet
word: fuck trophy
word: hump dumpling
word: pet sperm
word: semen demon
word: shitling
word: sperm blossom
word: sperm buttercup
word: sperm bubbles
word: bitchling
word: terence
glosses: A human child.
The qualities possessed by a confident and assertive woman.
examples: text: an army brat
text: Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commander of the Fourth Army, was an army “brat,” which means his father was an army officer. But he went into the army from Princeton, not from West Point.
ref: 1941 June 5, Gerry Dick, “They Practiced Art of War, Then They Studied It”, in Hope Star, Hope, Arkansas, page 5:
synonyms: word: bairn
word: brat
word: child
word: chit
word: crumb cruncher
word: crumb crusher
word: crumb grinder
word: crumb snatcher
word: fry
word: juvenile
word: kid
word: kiddie
word: little one
word: minor
word: mini-me
word: moppet
word: munchkin
word: nipper
word: slip
word: small fry
word: sprog
word: sprout
word: tart
word: tot
word: tyke
word: youngling
word: youngster
word: young'un
word: youth
word: crib lizard
word: crotch critter
word: crotch dropping
word: crotch fruit
word: crotch goblin
word: crotch monkey
word: crotchling
word: cum cheese
word: cum pet
word: cunt dropping
word: fucklet
word: fuck trophy
word: hump dumpling
word: pet sperm
word: semen demon
word: shitling
word: sperm blossom
word: sperm buttercup
word: sperm bubbles
word: bitchling
word: terence
glosses: A human child.
A child (at any age) of an active member of the military or the diplomatic service.
topics: BDSM
lifestyle
sexuality
synonyms: word: bairn
word: brat
word: child
word: chit
word: crumb cruncher
word: crumb crusher
word: crumb grinder
word: crumb snatcher
word: fry
word: juvenile
word: kid
word: kiddie
word: little one
word: minor
word: mini-me
word: moppet
word: munchkin
word: nipper
word: slip
word: small fry
word: sprog
word: sprout
word: tart
word: tot
word: tyke
word: youngling
word: youngster
word: young'un
word: youth
word: crib lizard
word: crotch critter
word: crotch dropping
word: crotch fruit
word: crotch goblin
word: crotch monkey
word: crotchling
word: cum cheese
word: cum pet
word: cunt dropping
word: fucklet
word: fuck trophy
word: hump dumpling
word: pet sperm
word: semen demon
word: shitling
word: sperm blossom
word: sperm buttercup
word: sperm bubbles
word: bitchling
word: terence
glosses: A human child.
A submissive partner who is disobedient and unruly.
examples: text: For the crabby awd dealers in ling, cod, and brats / And the vurgins that tempt us wi' nice maiden skyet...
ref: 1843, Thomas Wilson, The Movement^([The Pitman's Pay: And Other Poems]):
glosses: A turbot or flatfish.
examples: text: The chief's daughter wears a brat and léine girdled with a criss.
ref: 1961, Audrey I. Barfoot, Everyday costume in Britain: from the earliest times to 1900, page 80:
text: The prevailing style of dress in the early medieval period comprised a léine (tunic) worn under a brat (cloak).
ref: 2005, Seán Duffy, Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia, →ISBN, page 156:
text: Women wore loose, flowing, ankle-length robes modelled on 11th-century European fashion (derived from what O'Neill called the léine) and, perhaps, a brat over these.
ref: 2006, Celtic Culture: A-Celti, →ISBN, page 1272:
glosses: A rough cloak or ragged garment.
examples: text: [She] had still on the rough worsted apron of nappy homespun wool, called a "brat".
ref: 1882, John Strathesk, “pp. 135”, in Blinkbonny^([The English Dialect Dictionary... brat]):
glosses: A coarse kind of apron for keeping the clothes clean; a bib.
examples: text: Their ſhoulders broad, for complet armour fit,
Their lims more large and of a bigger ſize
Than all the brats yſprong from Typhons loins:
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:
text: They are your Will-Worship-men, your Prelates Brats: Take the whole Litter of’um, and you’ll finde never a barrel better Herring.
ref: 1680, Roger L'Estrange, Citt and Bumpkin:
glosses: The young of an animal.
Derived terms: army brat
bratling
Brat Pack
brat tamer
brattery
brattish
brattitude
chequer-brat
diplobrat
fac brat
fanbrat
firebrat
grandbrat
military brat
superbrat