rattrap
Americannoun
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a device for catching rats.
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a run-down, filthy, or dilapidated place.
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a difficult, involved, or entangling situation.
Etymology
Origin of rattrap
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.
While cleaning it I found lots of matches, a cap, and a rattrap.
From The New Yorker
First thing Saturday morning, he drove to the hardware store and bought a sturdy new seat for the toilet in the trailer, plus a dozen jumbo rattraps.
From Literature
The carton was very sticky, covered in glue from rattraps.
From New York Times
He remembers that house as a “rattrap,” a term that had an all-too-literal meaning for Rice, whose feet were bitten by rodents while he slept.
From Newsweek
“Intelligence is a rattrap,” says one cynical spymaster.
From New York 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.
