rabbit
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ball-games
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cricket
engineering
games
hobbies
lifestyle
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
sports
Etymology: 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 Middle Low German robbe, rubbe (“rabbit”), and the later German Low German Rubbe, Robb (“seal”), West Frisian robbe (“seal”), Saterland Frisian Rubbe (“seal”), North Frisian rob (“seal”), borrowed into German Robbe (“seal”).
Meant "young rabbit" until the 19th c., when it came to replace the original general term cony, owing to the latter's resemblance to and use as a euphemism for cunny, "vulva" (compare ass and donkey).
Note that there is no inherited Germanic word for rabbits, since hares are the only leporids native to Britain (as with all of Europe outside the Iberian Peninsula and southwest France); rabbits were introduced from France in the late Middle Ages, likely after the Norman Invasion. (Fittingly, hare is indeed inherited from Proto-Germanic.)
Inflected forms:
form: rabbits
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: rabbits
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: rabbiting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: rabbitting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: rabbited
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: rabbited
pos: verb
tags: past
form: rabbitted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: rabbitted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A mammal of most genera of the family Leporidae, with long ears, long hind legs and a short, fluffy tail. (Those of the larger kind are instead called hares)
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The pioneers survived by eating the small game they could get: rabbits, squirrels and occasionally a raccoon.
Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.
gloss: The meat from this animal.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: She was cooking rabbit stew for dinner.
gloss: The fur of a rabbit typically used to imitate another animal's fur.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: A runner in a distance race whose goal is mainly to set the pace, either to tire a specific rival so that a teammate can win or to help another break a record; a pacesetter.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A very poor batsman, selected as a bowler or wicket-keeper.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A batsman who is frequently dismissed by the same bowler (said to be that player's rabbit).
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Glenn McGrath dismissed Michael Atherton a record 19 times; hence Atherton is McGrath's rabbit.
gloss: A large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into its correct position. Compare turtle.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: Rarebit; Welsh rabbit or a similar dish: melted cheese served atop toast.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The cheese mixture may be served with toast on the side or poured on top of toast and grilled until golden brown and bubbling. Other variations include Buck rabbit, a Welsh rabbit with a poached egg on top, and Yorkshire rabbit with bacon ...
CHEESE TOASTED, OR RABBIT.
Hannah Glasse offered recipes for Scotch, Welsh, and English rabbit. This is her Scotch rabbit: Toast a piece of bread very nicely […] Cut a slice of cheese, […]
gloss: A pneumatically-controlled tool used to insert small samples of material inside the core of a nuclear reactor.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: This rabbit is constructed such that only that fraction of the beam that passes through the 15g-in. diameter target container reaches the Faraday cup behind the rabbit.
gloss: A vibrator with a shaft and a clitoral stimulator usually shaped like a rabbit's ears.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Rabbits come in many forms/In colors, shapes and sizes./ They satisfy a lady's needs,/Indulging her sweet vices.
First, she showed us the standard dildos before moving on to the rabbits—vibrators with little ears to stimulate the clit.
She reached into her night stand for some lubricant and her rabbit vibrator.
gloss: To hunt rabbits.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To flee.
pos: verb
tags: US
intransitive
examples: The informant seemed skittish, as if he was about to rabbit.
When the three friends heard someone behind them yell, "police, freeze!" they each rabbited in a different direction.
The attacked man stressed to the GCN the importance of confronting someone who is harassing a person in the Fenway. He said the attack on him could have been prevented if another man who was in front of him prior to the attack hadn't "rabbitted out of there."
Synonyms: bunny
bunny rabbit
coney
cony
Related words: buck
cottontail
doe
hare
kitten
warren
Derived words: Amami rabbit
angora rabbit
antelabbit
antirabbit
breed like rabbits
brush rabbit
buck rabbit
buy the rabbit
cabbit
California rabbit tobacco
common rabbit
cutaneous rabbit effect
cutaneous rabbit illusion
Dutch rabbit
dwarf rabbit
enough to make a rabbit bite a bulldog
European rabbit
frightened rabbit
fuck like rabbits
gutter rabbit
hog-rabbit
horse and rabbit stew
jack-rabbit
jackrabbit
kill the rabbit
let the dog see the rabbit
lionhead rabbit
make a rabbit bite a bulldog
marsh rabbit
nonrabbit
one-rabbit
pull a rabbit from a hat
pull a rabbit out of a hat
rabbitat
rabbit ball
rabbit bandicoot
rabbitberry
rabbit board
rabbitbrush
rabbitbush
rabbitdom
rabbit ear
rabbit-eared
rabbit-eared bandicoot
rabbit-ear iris
rabbit ear mite
rabbit ears
rabbiter
rabbit fever
rabbitfish
rabbit food
rabbit-foot
rabbit foot
rabbitfucker
rabbit-hearted
rabbit hole
rabbithood
rabbit hutch
rabbit in the headlamps
rabbit in the headlights
rabbitish
rabbitkind
Rabbitland
rabbitless
rabbitlike
rabbitling
rabbit moth
rabbit-o
rabbito
rabbit-oh
rabbitpox
rabbit-proof
rabbit punch
rabbit raisins
rabbit rat
rabbit-rat
rabbit root
rabbitry
rabbit's foot
rabbitskin
rabbit starvation
rabbit stick
rabbit syndrome
rabbit test
rabbit tooth
rabbit trail
rabbit vibrator
rabbit warren
rabbitweed
rabbitwise
rabbitwood
rabbity
riverine rabbit
rock rabbit
roof rabbit
snowrabbit
snowshoe rabbit
swamp rabbit
the rabbit died
timid as a rabbit
tree rabbit
volcano rabbit
wabbit
Welsh rabbit
wererabbit
white rabbit
Translations: