frat
Americannoun
-
frats
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of frat
An Americanism dating back to 1890–95; by shortening
Explanation
A frat is a club for male college students. The stereotypical frat boy is a rich kid on spring break drinking beer, doing chest bumps, and crashing Daddy’s Mercedes. But of course some frat boys are very nice. Seriously, bro. The word frat is short for fraternity, and both words mean "body of men associated by common interest," from the Latin root fraternitatem, or "brotherhood." A frat will usually have their own house and a name made up of two or three Greek letters. A frat can be a close-knit community of young men who live, work, and volunteer in the community together. Some frats, however, are exclusionary societies that haze new members and throw drunken campus parties.
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:
From shoulder shimmies and frat flicks to somersaults and knee slides, the Flemings and Schifferles left it all on the dance floor to prove the prowess of their family name.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
If that sounds like a 1997 frat party elevated to political abstraction, fair enough.
From Salon ● Feb. 8, 2026
“Those groups would end up endorsing a bunch of frat bros.”
From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2025
In her freshman year, Chan went to a frat party with a friend who was worried that a boy she’d developed a crush on might be sketchy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2025
How his hand had touched the small of my back to steer me through a crowd of rowdy frat guys in the dining room.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
What do you think should be done to keep frats a safe place for young pledges?
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 31, 2020
It can also indicate ample financial support for social activities outside of frats and varsity sports teams.
From Slate ● Mar. 28, 2019
“The house was so nasty that all the college frats had turned it down as unsanitary,” he recalled in a commencement speech this year at Catholic University’s law school.
From New York Times ● Jul. 14, 2018
My roommates were loving hitting the town, but I wasn't as psyched about going to the frats.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2015
If one of the other frats had the right Smith and knew it, and had pledged him during the night, there was positively no use in living any longer.
From At Good Old Siwash by George Fitch
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.
