Etymology

tattered

T1A1T1T1E1R1E1D2

Today it means: Rent in tatters, torn, hanging in rags; ragged. Full definition →

Middle English tatered ← Old Norse tǫturr
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Old Norse · derived fromtǫturr
  2. Middle English · inherited fromtatered
  3. English todaytattered

From Middle English tatered, tatird, from Old Norse tǫturr. Originally, it was derived from the noun, but it was later reanalysed as a past participle (tatter + -ed), whereafter the verb came into being. Compare tatter.

Words from the same roots

Old Norsetǫturr all →

tatter

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.