ratty

comparative rattier · superlative rattiest

1. Resembling or characteristic of a rat; ratlike.

   Synonyms: rattish

2. Infested with rats.
3. figurativelyinformalIn poor condition or repair.

   I was having exactly that thought on a ratty mock-leather couch in Islington.

   2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador, published 2007, page 80

   2 more examples

   We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher knife without any handle, and a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bed-quilt off the bed, […] and just as we were leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg.

   1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter IX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 78

   The Marcher lord was still clad in his ratty black cloak and dented breastplate with its chipped enamel lightning.

   2000 August 8, George R[aymond] R[ichard] Martin, “Arya [Stark]”, in A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire; 3), London: Voyager, →ISBN, page 443

   Synonyms: battered, tattered, tatty, torn, worn out

4. AustraliafigurativelyinformalCrazy, mad; ridiculous; slightly strange, eccentric; also (followed by about, on, or over), attracted to, infatuated with.
5. figurativelyinformalAnnoyed, bad-tempered, irritable.

   He got bad, he got ratty, he would take it out on people around him. He was mean when it turned against him.

   2009, Ian McDonald, River of Gods

   Synonyms: annoyed, angry, aggravated, agitated, bothered, exasperated, frustrated, irritable

1. uncountableSynonym of knock down ginger (“prank of knocking on a front door and running away”).

   Synonyms: knock down ginger