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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hat.

A covering for the head, often in the approximate form of a cone, dome or cylinder closed at its top end, and sometimes having a brim and other decoration.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hæt/Australia, US/hat/California, Canada, Received-Pronunciation/hæ̞ʔ/Northwestern, US/hɛt/New-Zealand, Northern-US
  1. A covering for the head, often in the approximate form of a cone, dome or cylinder closed at its top end, and sometimes having a brim and other decoration.

  2. A particular role or capacity that a person might fill.

    figuratively
  3. Any receptacle from which names or numbers are pulled out in a lottery.

    figuratively
  4. Any receptacle from which names or numbers are pulled out in a lottery. The lottery or draw itself.

    broadly · figuratively
    We're both in the hat: let's hope we come up against each other.
  5. A hat switch.

  6. The circumflex symbol.

  7. The háček symbol.

    nonstandard · rare
  8. The caret symbol ^.

    informal
  9. User rights on a website, such as the right to edit pages others cannot.

    Internet
  10. A student who is also the son of a nobleman (and so allowed to wear a hat instead of a mortarboard).

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), perhaps from a late PIE root Proto-Indo-European *kedʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”) or wanderwort. Cognate with North Frisian and Danish hat (“hat”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“hat”), Finnish hattu (“hat”), Latin cassis (“helmet”), Lithuanian kudas (“bird's crest or tuft”), Avestan 𐬑𐬀𐬊𐬛𐬀 (xaoda, “hat”), Persian خود (xud, “helmet”), Welsh cadw (“to provide for, ensure”). Compare also hood. Verb sense 4 derives from a common English Wikipedia template used to collapse disruptive discussions, {{Hidden archive top}}, abbreviated as {{hat}}.

verb/hæt/Australia, US/hat/California, Canada, Received-Pronunciation/hæ̞ʔ/Northwestern, US/hɛt/New-Zealand, Northern-US
  1. To place a hat on.

    transitive
  2. To appoint as cardinal.

    transitive
  3. To shop for hats.

    intransitive
  4. To collapse with a template a part of a discussion due to it being overly long, disruptive, or already addressed.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), perhaps from a late PIE root Proto-Indo-European *kedʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”) or wanderwort. Cognate with North Frisian and Danish hat (“hat”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“hat”), Finnish hattu (“hat”), Latin cassis (“helmet”), Lithuanian kudas (“bird's crest or tuft”), Avestan 𐬑𐬀𐬊𐬛𐬀 (xaoda, “hat”), Persian خود (xud, “helmet”), Welsh cadw (“to provide for, ensure”). Compare also hood. Verb sense 4 derives from a common English Wikipedia template used to collapse disruptive discussions, {{Hidden archive top}}, abbreviated as {{hat}}.

verb/hæt/Australia, US/hat/California, Canada, Received-Pronunciation/hæ̞ʔ/Northwestern, US/hɛt/New-Zealand, Northern-US
  1. simple past of hit

    Northern-England · Scotland · form-of · obsolete · past
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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.