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Glite Dictionary
🧑‍🎤 A tattoo 💸 Cheap goods 🧵 To make lace
to tat

to tat

1 9.9
To make lace by knotting thread with a small shuttle
  • verb
  • /tæt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : hacer frivolité
  • Around her, she heard the whispers of history tatting her net.

Examples

  • ♪ Every year I tat an angel on me

    SuperFly (2018)

  • We tat the lace for your fucking curtains.

    Live by Night (2016)

  • I wish she had taught me to tat while her eyesight was still sharp.

    Blog text (15)

  • ♪ Every year I tat an angel on me

    SuperFly (2018)

  • "Right here," says Wanda, "tatting a rug."

    Fiction book (1999)

  • They're gonna tat...

    Idiocracy (2006)

  • Your finger tats.

    Big Stan (2007)

  • Terrified by his weakness, Don Juan tots up his victims like so many annihilated insects.

    Academic text (1998)

  • She learned to tat intricate lace patterns using a small shuttle.

  • During the craft fair, she demonstrated how to tat beautiful decorative edges on fabric.

Idioms

tit for tat
  • Informal
12 5.8

An action done to hurt someone because they hurt you

Compounds

rat-a-tat-tat
1 9.0

A series of short, sharp tapping sounds like knocking on a door

rat-tat
1 7.7

A series of quick, sharp knocks often on a door or drum

tit-tat-toe
  • Archaic
4.5

A simple two-player game of X and O on a 3 by 3 grid to make three in a row

Surface Forms

tat infinitive
tatted past
tatted past participle
tatting present participle
tats third person singular

Etymology

Tat for making lace comes from the craft tatting, a short name that probably echoes the quick 'tat-tat' sound of the small shuttle or links to the old word tatter for ragged cloth, and that's why tatting means making fine lace by knotting thread.