lab rat
American-
Also called laboratory rat. a rat, typically the Norway rat, used by scientists for biological research.
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Informal. a laboratory researcher, often a graduate student, whose dedication to the research supplants other interests and activities, including personal relationships.
The loneliest guy in the room is the one who’s in love with a lab rat.
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Informal. the subject of any sort of experiment.
Not all the human lab rats in this study fully understood the potential consequences.
Etymology
Origin of lab rat
First recorded in 1965–70
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.
“Why you asking me to do something that everybody else didn’t do? I ain’t no sucker. I ain’t no lab rat. Come on, bro.”
From Los Angeles Times
Fittingly, Pattinson hunches his shoulders and curls his upper lip: an obedient lab rat.
From Los Angeles Times
For a scene in which a lab rat dies and then reanimates, Álvarez enlisted Tippett Studio, the outfit run by legendary effects master Phil Tippett, to make a model rodent move through stop-motion animation.
From Los Angeles Times
We’re like a lab rat that keeps taking the bit of cheese that’s attached to an electrical wire.
From Los Angeles Times
In 2018, Hatch Escapes debuted a highly regarded escape room in Lab Rat, a comedic horror show in which the roles of humans and test rodents are flipped.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
