drat
Americanverb (used with object)
interjection
interjection
Usage
What does drat mean? Drat is something you say to express mild frustration, disappointment, or disgust. Drat is most commonly used as an interjection (something exclaimed to express some kind of emotion). Less commonly, it is used as a verb with a meaning similar to damn, for which it is considered a euphemism (a milder version). Example: Drat, I lost my phone!
Etymology
Origin of drat
First recorded in 1805–15; alteration of (o)d rot God rot (i.e., may God rot him, her, it)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
OK — so we’d at least get up to that bend in the trail to take a peek … and … drat!
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 11, 2019
But as might be expected in the cat-and-mouse game that is the run-up to the drat, he also said the team could well stay use its first-round pick at number 21.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 1, 2019
Video has surfaced of the arrest over the weekend of Seahawks' top drat pick Malik McDowell.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 13, 2017
Arnold said, or some variant of drat, and threw his shoes and clubs in the suddenly quiet locker room.
From Golf Digest ● Mar. 23, 2010
“Absolutely,” cried the bard, “in a flash! A Fflam never hesitates. Fortunes of war and all that. Oh, drat and blast! There goes another string. A thick one, too.”
From "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alexander
I certainly wish Germany to stay in the Eurozone, not to be able to dip into its dratted kitty, but for its own sake as well as for Europe's sake.
From Economist ● May 2, 2013
The Zags are left to sort out how much of that exit was due to their own frailties and how much to dratted ill timing and bad luck.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2013
The dratted devices also make it easier for managers in one time zone to spoil the evenings of managers in another.
From Economist ● Mar. 8, 2012
And the grand old game of golf has never been the same since some dratted tinkerer invented the wedge.
From Time Magazine Archive
‘I wonder where that dratted Gollum is?’ thought Sam, as he crawled back into deeper shade.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
"Doing nothing's the hardest job I ever struck," he growled, shifting impatiently from shade to shade, and dratting the flies and dust; and even sank so low as to envy the missus her house.
From We of the Never-Never by Gunn, Jeannie
"But if you go dratting things, I can't economize," the girl reminded him.
From Michael O'Halloran by Stratton-Porter, Gene
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
