rabbit
Plural: rabbits
Noun
- any of various burrowing animals of the family Leporidae having long ears and short tails; some domesticated and raised for pets or food
- the fur of a rabbit
- flesh of any of various rabbits or hares (wild or domesticated) eaten as food
- A mammal of most genera of the family Leporidae, with long ears, long hind legs and a short, fluffy tail.
- The meat from this animal.
- The fur of a rabbit typically used to imitate another animal's fur.
- 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.
- A very poor batsman, selected as a bowler or wicket-keeper.
- A batsman who is frequently dismissed by the same bowler (said to be that player's rabbit).
- A large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into its correct position. Compare turtle.
- Rarebit; Welsh rabbit or a similar dish: melted cheese served atop toast.
- A pneumatically-controlled tool used to insert small samples of material inside the core of a nuclear reactor.
- A vibrator with a shaft and a clitoral stimulator usually shaped like a rabbit's ears.
Verb
Verb Forms: rabbited, rabbiting, rabbits
- To hunt rabbits.
- hunt rabbits
- To hunt rabbits.
- To flee.
- To talk incessantly and in a childish manner; to babble annoyingly.
- Confound; damn; drat.
Examples
- Glenn McGrath dismissed Michael Atherton a record 19 times; hence Atherton is McGrath's rabbit.
- He had to RABBIT for high-scoring letters, digging through the bag.
- She was cooking rabbit stew for dinner.
- Stop your infernal rabbiting! Use proper words or nobody will listen to you!
- The informant seemed skittish, as if he was about to rabbit.
- The pioneers survived by eating the small game they could get: rabbits, squirrels and occasionally a raccoon.
- When the three friends heard someone behind them yell, "police, freeze!" they each rabbited in a different direction.
Origin / Etymology
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).
Synonyms
coney, cony, hare, lapin, babble, blather, bolt, bunny, bunny rabbit, prattle, rabbit on, run off, scamper
Scrabble Score: 10
rabbit: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordrabbit: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
rabbit: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary