prat

See also: Appendix:Variations of "prat"

English

Alternative forms

• pratt

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɹat/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

  Rhymes: -æt

Etymology 1

From Middle English prat, from Old English præt, prætt (“trick, prank, craft, art, wile”), from Proto-West Germanic *prattu, from Proto-Germanic *prattuz (“boastful talk, deceit”), from Proto-Indo-European *brodno- (“to wander about”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian prat, Dutch pret (“fun, pleasure, gaity”), obsolete Dutch prat (“cunning, strategem, scheme, a prideful display, arrogance”), Low German prot, Norwegian prette (“trick”), Icelandic prettur (“a trick”). Related to pretty.

Noun

prat (plural prats)

1. (now Scotland) A cunning or mischievous trick; a prank, a joke. [from 10th c.]

Related terms

• pretty

Translations

cunning or mischievous trick

Finnish: jekku (fi)

Adjective

prat (comparative more prat, superlative most prat)

1. (obsolete) Cunning, astute. [13th–17th c.]

Etymology 2

Unknown. Perhaps a specialised use of Etymology 1 (see above).

Noun

prat (plural prats)

1. (slang) A buttock, or the buttocks; a person's bottom. [from 16th c.]
   • 1608, Thomas Dekker, The Canters Dictionarie in The Belman of London (second part Lanthorne and Candlelight)

     Pratt, a Buttock.

   • 1707, John Shirley, “The Maunder's Praise of his Strowling Mort”, in The Triumph of Wit:

     No gentry mort hath prats like thine, / No cove e'er wap'd with such a one.

   • 1952, Leonard Bishop, Down All Your Streets, page 218:

     Burt shook his head, wanting to tell Mac what a pain in the prat he was when he went on a take, but instead, repeated his instruction, keeping his voice at a whisper, moving his fingertips along the table […]

   • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 5:

     Mungo didn't like their attitude. Nor did he like exposing his prat in mixed company.

2. (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang) A fool, contemptible person. [from 20th c.]
   • 2023 June 29, Metro, London, page 10, column 3:

     Those protestors will have achieved nothing good. They are stupid prats.

3. (slang) The female genitals. [from 17th c.]
   • 1967 (sourced to 1942), William A. Schwartz, The Limerick: 1700 Examples with Notes, Variants and Examples Vol 1, Greenleaf Classics 1967, p. 124:

     "She's a far better piece
     Than the Viceroy's niece,
     Who has also more fur on her prat."

   • 1984 John Murray, ed, Panurge, Vol 1–3, p. 39:

     "...they would kidnap a girl and take her back to their camp where they would pull down her knickers, hoping to find hairs on her prat."

   • 2005, Sherrie Seibert Goff, The Arms of Quirinus‎, iUniverse, page 135:

     "My prat was sore from the unfamiliar activities of the night before, but my virgin bleeding had ceased, and we rode most of the day in that unworldly haze that comes with lack of sleep."

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:fool
• See also Thesaurus:buttocks

Derived terms

• prat about
• prat around
• prat boy
• prat digger
• pratfall
• prattery (rare)
• prattish (rare)

Translations

buttocks

Bulgarian: задник (bg) m (zadnik) Finnish: peppu (fi)

fool

Finnish: torvi (fi)

female genitals

Finnish: pillu (fi)

References

• pratt, in Sex-Lexis.com by Farlex.

Anagrams

• TRAP, part, part., patr-, rapt, rtPA, tarp, trap