frat
Americannoun
noun
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.
He is the exuberant frat boy, the alpha of the group.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 31, 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
“We sounded like a bunch of college frat boys singing into a tape recorder,” Marsh says.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 5, 2025
“Unless Jenny Lindt is secretly a frat boy, I seriously doubt it. They’re going to flop. This thing isn’t going to go any further.”
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
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.
