Vat
adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A large tub, such as is used for making wine or for tanning.
"a vat of liquid"
- 2 Initialism of value added tax. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, uncountable
"And neither party is up for imposing a VAT in place of the current income tax system."
- 3 a large open vessel for holding or storing liquids wordnet
- 4 A square, hollow place on the back of a calcining furnace, where tin ore is laid to dry.
- 5 Initialism of vigilance awareness training. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, uncountable
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- 6 a tax based on the value of the goods collected by the end retailer wordnet
- 7 A vessel for holding holy water.
- 8 A liquid measure and dry measure; especially, a liquid measure in Belgium and Holland, corresponding to the hectolitre of the metric system, which contains 22.01 imperial gallons, or 26.4 standard gallons in the United States. dated
- 1 To put into a vat. transitive
- 2 To blend (wines or spirits) in a vat; figuratively, to mix or blend elements as if with wines or spirits. transitive
"He was thinking of the grape arbor in Kingston, of summer twilight and the murmur of voices darkening into silence as he approached, who meant them, her, no harm; who meant her less than harm, good God; darkening into the pale whisper of her white dress, of the delicate and urgent mammalian whisper of that curious small flesh which he had not begot and in which appeared to be vatted delicately some seething sympathy with the blossoming grape."
- 1 Designating a vat dye. not-comparable
"vat red"
Example
More examples"The VAT in Germany is 19 per cent."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English vat, a dialectal variant of fat (“vat, vessel, cask”), from Old English fæt (“vat, vessel”), from Proto-West Germanic *fat, from Proto-Germanic *fatą (“vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *pod- (“vessel”). Cognate with Scots fat, vat, vautt (“vat, cask, tub”), West Frisian fet, Dutch vat (“barrel, cask, vessel, vat”), German Fass (“barrel, keg, drum, cask, vat”), Danish fad (“saucer, dish”), Swedish fat (“dish, barrel, cask, vat”), Icelandic fat (“dish, saucer”). See fat.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.