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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

brat.

A human child.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/bɹæt/
  1. A human child.

    countable · slang · uncountable
  2. A human child. A child who is regarded as mischievous, unruly, spoiled, or selfish.

    countable · derogatory · slang · uncountable
    a spoiled brat
    Get that little brat away from me!
  3. A human child. The qualities possessed by a confident and assertive woman.

    neologism · slang · uncountable
  4. A human child. A child (at any age) of an active member of the military or the diplomatic service.

    countable · slang · uncountable
    an army brat
  5. A human child. A submissive partner who is disobedient and unruly.

    countable · slang · uncountable
  6. An immature, spoiled and/or selfish person.

    broadly · countable · derogatory · uncountable
  7. A turbot or flatfish.

    countable · uncountable
  8. A rough cloak or ragged garment.

    countable · historical · uncountable
  9. A coarse kind of apron for keeping the clothes clean; a bib.

    Scotland · UK · countable · dialectal · obsolete · uncountable
  10. The young of an animal.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/bɹæt/
  1. To act in a bratty manner as the submissive.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

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.

adj/bɹæt/
  1. Characteristic of a confident and assertive woman.

    neologism
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/bɹɑt/US
  1. Bratwurst.

    countable · informal · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Clipping of bratwurst, from German Bratwurst.

noun
  1. A thin bed of coal mixed with pyrites or carbonate of lime.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.