Tatter

//ˈtætə(ɹ)// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A shred of torn cloth; an individual item of torn and ragged clothing.

    "You can’t – you shan’t – you don’t – you won’t – you thing of rag and tatter, O!"

  2. 2
    A person engaged in tatting.
  3. 3
    a small piece of cloth wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To destroy an article of clothing etc. by shredding. transitive
  2. 2
    To fall into tatters. intransitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
ablateabradebarrelbeelinebitbits

Example

More examples

"You can’t – you shan’t – you don’t – you won’t – you thing of rag and tatter, O!"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English tater, from Old Norse tǫturr, from Proto-Germanic *tat(t)uraz (“tuft, patch”). Cognate with Icelandic tötur (“rag, tatter”).

Etymology 2

From tat + -er.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.