brown rat
1
2.1
- noun
- /braʊn ræt/
:
rata parda
- In many cities, the brown rat population has increased due to the availability of food from humans.
Examples
-
Farmers consider the brown rat a serious pest because it can consume large amounts of stored grain.
-
The contents were one brown rat.
Fiction book (1990) -
The brown rat is often found rummaging through trash bins in urban areas.
Synonyms
692
1.0
A small animal like a large mouse with a long tail that lives near people
1
4.2
A large brown rat that lives near people and often causes trouble
1
4.1
A brown rat that lives in sewers and other dirty city places
A common brown rat that lives near people, often found in cities and sometimes kept as a pet
A brown animal like a mouse that lives on docks and eats bait
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: a B1 learner who knows 'brown' and 'rat' will understand it as a rat that is brown (and plausibly the common urban species). Although it can refer to the specific species Rattus norvegicus, the basic meaning is transparently derived from the constituents and follows common cross‑linguistic adjectival modification patterns.
Etymology
Brown rat gets its name from its brown fur and from the animal itself: people used brown to describe its colour and rat for the animal. That's why the name now means the common type of rat that lives near people and is often called a 'pest'.