ratty curtain
- noun
- Informal
:
cortina desgastada
- She decided to replace the ratty curtain with something more cheerful.
Examples
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After years of use, the ratty curtain was full of holes and badly needed replacing.
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The ratty curtain barely kept the sunlight out of the room.
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A ratty curtain hung limply over the broken window.
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That old ratty curtain is awful!
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The ratty curtain in the guest room is embarrassing.
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The ratty curtain in the living room made the whole house look neglected.
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She replaced the old, ratty curtain with a vibrant new one to brighten up the space.
How Worn
Surface Forms
Morphology
'Ratty curtain' is fully compositional: the adjective 'ratty' (shabby, worn-out) directly modifies 'curtain', yielding the straightforward meaning 'a shabby or worn-out curtain.' This adjective–noun combination follows a common and predictable pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituent words will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Ratty curtain may come from the simple image of a curtain chewed and full of holes by rats, so the word ratty means like a rat-chewed thing and the curtain looks dirty and torn. That's why ratty curtain means 'worn-out' or 'shabby'.