brat
Part of speech: noun
verb
adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: BDSM
lifestyle
sexuality
Etymology: Early Modern English (c. 1500) slang term meaning "beggar's child". Possibly from Scots bratchet (“bitch, hound”), in which case it would be a doublet of brachet. 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, though occasional earlier uses of the word with a "reclaimed" or ironic, positive connotation existed, including in LGBTQ slang for people of certain femme or feminine-leaning personalities.
Inflected forms:
form: brats
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: brats
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: bratting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: bratted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: bratted
pos: verb
tags: past
form: more brat
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most brat
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: A human child.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
examples: "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 --"
gloss: A human child.
pos: noun
tags: countable
derogatory
slang
uncountable
examples: a spoiled brat
Get that little brat away from me!
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.
gloss: A human child.
pos: noun
tags: neologism
slang
uncountable
examples: Here are the people and the styles at the DNC that embodied the brat ethos.
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.
My favorite touch is how each of her Nike shoes has its own little bow, which is just the perfect amount of brat.
gloss: A human child.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
examples: an army brat
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.
gloss: A human child.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
gloss: A turbot or flatfish.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: For the crabby awd dealers in ling, cod, and brats / And the vurgins that tempt us wi' nice maiden skyet...
gloss: A rough cloak or ragged garment.
pos: noun
tags: countable
historical
uncountable
examples: The chief's daughter wears a brat and léine girdled with a criss.
The prevailing style of dress in the early medieval period comprised a léine (tunic) worn under a brat (cloak).
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.
gloss: A coarse kind of apron for keeping the clothes clean; a bib.
pos: noun
tags: Scotland
UK
countable
dialectal
obsolete
uncountable
examples: [She] had still on the rough worsted apron of nappy homespun wool, called a "brat".
gloss: The young of an animal.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
examples: Their ſhoulders broad, for complet armour fit,
Their lims more large and of a bigger ſize
Than all the brats yſprong from Typhons loins:
They are your Will-Worship-men, your Prelates Brats: Take the whole Litter of’um, and you’ll finde never a barrel better Herring.
gloss: To act in a bratty manner as the submissive.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Ruthie was Ed's own submissive, a short, pretty, feisty ash-blonde New York City native who combined her submission to Ed with a good deal of mischievous bratting and a lot of sharp, intelligent conversation […]
Rather, Ana moves between playful bratting and a type of “conquer me” wantedness that good Dominants would respond to with increased control and correction.
gloss: Characteristic of a confident and assertive woman.
pos: adj
tags: neologism
examples: kamala IS brat
Starmer's Tory predecessors Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were identified as brat by 15 percent each of those asked.
Kamala Harris herself was anointed as "brat" the moment that Joe Biden stepped down, but already Harris's mother – who had Indian heritage and raised Harris as a single parent – has been declared the uberbrat, more brat than even her daughter.
[see title]
'[…] is brat’ was applied to a host of different entities. The latter reached its height when Charli XCX herself tweeted in July 2024 that US presidential candidate ‘kamala [Harris] IS brat', upon […]
Habeck later reposted fan‐made videos using slogans like “Green is brat,” demonstrating bottom‐up to top‐down incorporation.
Derived words: army brat
bratling
Brat Pack
brat tamer
brattery
brattish
brattitude
chequer-brat
diplobrat
fac brat
fanbrat
firebrat
grandbrat
military brat
superbrat
Translations: