rata

Forms

rata f (plural ratas, masculine rato, masculine plural ratos)^[1]

Etymology

It continues a Romance type inherited from Vulgar Latin *ratta, beside the masculine *rattus, which is found in every Romance area except Romania.^[2] Wiktionary derives the Vulgar Latin word from Germanic, ultimately Proto-Germanic *rattaz.^[1] Corominas instead says the word is found in western Romance, in Germanic and in Celtic, and is of uncertain origin, perhaps an imitation of the noise the animal makes when it gnaws or drags things to its hole.^[2][3] The DLE says only that the origin is unknown and compares French rat, English rat and German Ratte.^[4]

Corominas holds that the Germanic word was general in West Germanic by about the 8th century but not much earlier, since the German word did not take part in the High German consonant shift, so there is no reason to think it older in Germanic than in Romance.^[2] The Irish and Scottish Gaelic forms are loans from English, and he finds a Gaulish origin improbable.^[2] The same word is Portuguese rato, Galician rata, Asturian ratu, Catalan rata and Italian ratto, the last mainly in Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria.^[2][5][1]

Meyer-Lübke once identified the word with the Italian adjective for “quick”, a view rejected by Spitzer and later by Meyer-Lübke himself;^[2] Spitzer proposed the imitative origin that Corominas finds worth considering.^[2] Bénaben reports Guiraud's derivation from a Romance *raditare (“to gnaw”), from Latin rādō (“to scrape”).^[6] Gómez de Silva relates the word to Old High German ratta and, more doubtfully, to rōdō (“to gnaw”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a Romance name, the word appears about 1106 in the botanist Abenbuclárix, as Simonet noted.^[2][3] The DCECH's first record in a Spanish text is the Calila e Dimna of 1251: pasó por y un milano e levava una rata “a kite flew past there, carrying a rat”.^[2] A text of 1250, the Moamín on hunting animals, already prescribes carne de rata “rat meat” in a remedy.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Corominas thinks that Old Spanish first opposed rato “mouse” to rata “rat”, as Galician still does, and that ratón, with a suffix that is normally augmentative, replaced rato because of the awkward clash with rato “a while”.^[2] Bénaben also explains the -ón of ratón as a way to keep the word apart from rato.^[6] Old sayings keep traces of rato “mouse”: the Quijote has el gato al rato, el rato a la cuerda “the cat at the mouse, the mouse at the rope”.^[2] Nebrija glossed rata o ratón with Latin mus, which covers both animals.^[2][9]

The Diccionario de Autoridades of 1737 gave two senses: the female of the mouse and a kind of mouse much larger than the common one.^[10] Figurative senses come from the animal's habits and its low reputation: a despicable person, a stingy person, and a petty thief.^[4][11] From the same comparison came ratero, first “creeping” (about 1590) and then “pickpocket” (1605), and the thieves' slang rata “pocket” of 1609, which Corominas takes from ratero.^[2][3] In Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador rata also means a thief, and in Mexican youth slang an informer.^[12] In Uruguay a rata is a pupil's unjustified absence from class.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1106 – Abenbuclárix records ráta as a Romance name.^[2][3]
• 1250 – the Moamín uses carne de rata in a remedy (in a copy of the second half of the 13th century).^[8]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna, the DCECH's first record of the word in a Spanish text.^[2][13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary: Rata o raton animal terrestre. mus.^[9]
• 1605 – first record of the derivative ratero “petty thief”, in the Pícara Justina.^[2][3]
• 1609 – Juan Hidalgo's slang vocabulary has rata “pocket”.^[2][14]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the female mouse and the large species.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives the word from rato, ratón.^[15]
• 2001 – the Academy calls it an imitative word, from the noise the animal makes when it gnaws; the DLE now says “of unknown origin”.^[16][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rat: a rodent larger than the mouse, with a long tail, pointed snout and dark grey fur, very prolific and voracious.^[4][1]
2. A female mouse.^[4]
3. (colloquial) A despicable person: Esa rata me ha engañado otra vez.^[4][1]
4. (colloquial) A stingy person; also used as an adjective: No seas tan rata y paga tú la cena.^[4][1][17]
5. (colloquial, masculine) A petty thief, a ratero.^[4][17]
6. (rural) A small, very thin pigtail.^[4]
7. (thieves' slang) A pocket in a garment.^[4][14]
8. (Mexico, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Ecuador) A thief;^[12][1] (Mexico, youth slang) an informer, a snitch.^[12][1]

Word family

• ratón
• desratizar
• ratero
• ratería
• ratear
• ratonera

Related words

• Portuguese rato
• Catalan rata
• French rat

Usage notes

A separate word rata (the DLE's rata²) means “proportional share” and, in physics, a rate of change per unit of time.^[18] In Colombia, Panama, Peru and Venezuela it means a percentage.^[18][1] It comes from the Latin phrases rata parte, rata ratione and pro rata.^[18][1] Covarrubias in 1611 knew only this word, as rata de cuenta, the share that falls to each of several people, pro rata.^[19] The phrase a rata por cantidad is recorded in Guatemala in 1563.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 792
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rata
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. rata
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rata
6. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. rata
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. rata
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
9. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 496
11. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. rata
12. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. rata
13. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. rata
14. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 195
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 899
16. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. rata
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rata
18. ^ a b c Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. rata 2
19. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1247
20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies