ratty
/ˈrati
/adjective (rattier, rattiest)
1Resembling or characteristic of a rat: his ratty eyes glittered...
- Does she still have those ratty little Yorkshire terrier dogs?
- Flustered, she declines, and the whole thing is seen by Henderson's ex-boyfriend, a ratty bad-boy type played by Robert Carlyle.
- Remember, the mop of hair I was sporting was essentially a very, very long men's haircut, so it did have a tendency to look a little ratty on occasion.
1.1(Of a place) infested with rats: a ratty quarter acre of ground...
- His 14 ratty rooms are among the most luxurious accommodations for visitors to Ghadames' ancient town of mud houses and dark, twisting passageways.
- We moved into this ratty space over an electric store downtown [in Manhattan].
- If you've ever asked yourself who stays in ratty motels off the highway next to malls, with Walmarts as the high shopping, here is the answer.
1.2 informal In bad condition; shabby or ramshackle: a ratty old armchair...
- I felt cold in my ratty old nightshirt with the holes in it.
- She had put on her junky jeans that had holes and tears in it along with her ratty old black T-shirt.
- He can walk into the chicest and fanciest restaurant wearing his favorite old ratty T-shirt and jeans and nobody bats an eye.
2 [predicative] British informal Bad-tempered and irritable: I was a bit ratty with the children...
- So what can we hear now, the morning after the rush has worn off, now that we've feeling ratty and irritable?
- Perhaps they enjoy hearing me sound all ratty and scratchy, trying to be polite in the name of friendship.
- So cranky and ratty was I, the friend even vowed she would never go shopping with me again - yeah, yeah!
Derivatives
rattily
- And there is priceless support from Clive Merrison in the role of the rattily authoritarian headmaster.
- Sir Elton, as usual, appears gaudily clad and rattily toupéed.
rattiness
- I also have to praise Baker's fully-realized direction and his keen sense of detail from the kind of bag Evelyn carries to the rattiness of Adam's totem-esque plaid jacket.
- Rebecca Hall confirms her star status by endowing Maria with a mixture of scrubbed piety, intellectual fever and human rattiness.
- The down-and-out rattiness of a previous generation's Beijing East Village has been replaced by an urban-pioneering, but thoroughly cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial ethos.