rabbit
/ˈɹæbɪt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.05 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A mammal of most genera of the family Leporidae, with long ears, long hind legs and a short, fluffy tail. (Those of the larger kind are instead called hares)
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A runner in a distance race whose goal is mainly to set the pace, either to tire a specific rival so that a teammate can win or to help another break a record; a pacesetter.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A batsman who is frequently dismissed by the same bowler (said to be that player's rabbit).
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The pioneers survived by eating the small game they could get: rabbits, squirrels and occasionally a raccoon."
- "Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill."
- "She was cooking rabbit stew for dinner."
- "Glenn McGrath dismissed Michael Atherton a record 19 times; hence Atherton is McGrath's rabbit."
- "The cheese mixture may be served with toast on the side or poured on top of toast and grilled until golden brown and bubbling. Other variations include Buck rabbit, a Welsh rabbit with a poached egg on top, and Yorkshire rabbit with bacon ..."
- "CHEESE TOASTED, OR RABBIT."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English rabet, rabette, from Anglo-Latin rabettus, from dialectal Old French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (“rabbit, seal”), of uncertain origin; possibly some imitative verb, maybe robben, rubben (“to rub”) is used here to allude to a characteristic of the animal. See rub. Related forms include Middle French rabouillet (“baby rabbit”) and in French rabot (“plane”)), coming via Walloon Old French (reflected nowadays as Walloon robète (“rabbit”)), from Middle Dutch robbe ("rabbit; seal"; whence Modern Dutch rob (“rabbit", also "seal”)); also Middle Low German robbe, rubbe (“rabbit”), and the later German Low German Rubbe, Robb (“seal”), West Frisian robbe (“seal”), Saterland Frisian Rubbe (“seal”), North Frisian rob (“seal”), borrowed into German Robbe (“seal”). Meant "young rabbit" until the 19th c., when it came to replace the original general term cony, owing to the latter's resemblance to and use as a euphemism for cunny, "vulva" (compare ass and donkey). Note that there is no inherited Germanic word for rabbits, since hares are the only leporids native to Britain (as with all of Europe outside the Iberian Peninsula and southwest France); rabbits were introduced from France in the late Middle Ages, likely after the Norman Invasion. (Fittingly, hare is indeed inherited from Proto-Germanic.)
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: rabet, rabettus, rabotte, -, robbe
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈɹæbɪt/
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Intransitive verb
- American usage
- British usage