pack rat
6
7.4
- noun
- /pæk ræt/
- Informal
:
acumulador
- I used to be very organized, but now, for the last 20 years, I have lived with two pack rats, so somewhere along the way, I have joined them.
- pack rat nest
Examples
-
I figure Russell was a pack rat; couldn't let go of stuff.
Fiction book (2001) -
After cleaning out his closet, he admitted he was a pack rat who struggled to throw anything away.
-
However, he is clearly a pack rat.
-
I am typically not a pack rat but have been finding myself holding on to things, thinking "you never know when I will need that."
Blog text (22) -
I might add that I came from a family of pack rats, especially my mom.
Blog text (14) -
My husband and kids are pack rats and have to save everything!
Blog text (22) -
Being a bit of a pack rat pays off.
Blog text (16) -
As I'm sure you know, my grandmother was a major pack rat.
Fiction book (2001) -
Please don't tell everybody what a pack rat I am.
-
I am a pack rat, adding my layer of confirming refuse—drafts, letters, and journals—to the human nest.
Fiction book (2000)
Synonyms
18
5.5
A person who keeps many things and rarely throws them away, making their home very full
2
8.4
A person who keeps many things and does not like to throw them away
1
8.1
A person who often collects small old things other people discard
A person who collects old broken things and fixes them for fun
Antonyms
How Hoarding
Surface Forms
Morphology
pack + rat
Although a B1 learner who knows 'pack' (to bundle/store) and 'rat' (the animal) can infer a meaning like 'a rat that stores or hoards things', the precise zoological sense (genus Neotoma) and the conventionalized idiomatic extension to mean a human hoarder are lexicalized and culturally specific. The relation between constituents gives a motivated but not fully predictable meaning, so prior exposure helps.
Etymology
Pack rat comes from the little rodent that carries a pack of shiny or useful items back to its nest. So a person who keeps too many things is compared to that animal and called a pack rat, meaning 'a person who keeps too many things'.