vet

plural vets

1. colloquialA veterinarian or veterinary surgeon.

   Colin Cameron, a vet who examined the dead animal, said there was "no doubt the kitten would have suffered unnecessarily" before dying.

   2011 December 14, Steven Morris, “Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave”, in Guardian

plural vets

1. UScolloquialA veteran (a former soldier or other member of armed forces).

   “A former soldier, sir. A vet. Theyʼre all vets, a little shellshocked.”

   1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 73

present singular third person vets · participle present vetting · participle past vetted · past vetted

1. To thoroughly check or investigate particularly with regard to providing formal approval.

   The FBI vets all nominees to the Federal bench.

   3 more examples

   Sir Humphrey Appleby: Nevertheless we do not admit it (the existence of MI6). Not everyone round this table has been vetted (pun). / Jim Hacker: I thought that's something you do to cats (laugh track). / Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes indeed, but not ferrets, Minister (laugh track).

   1980 March 10, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “The Economy Drive”, in Yes, Minister, season 1, episode 3, spoken by Jim Hacker and Humphrey Appleby (Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne)

   41 year-old Thupten from Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture confirmed this threat of punishment. “The people in my area were very discontent when an election was announced. We knew that the candidates selected had already been carefully vetted by higher Chinese officials, and that our ‘voting’ was mere lip-service to Chinese claims of democracy, but we did it anyway.

   2000 September, “Corrupt and Farcical Elections”, in Racial Discrimination in Tibet, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, →OCLC, page 116

   House and Senate Committees are made up of elected legislators who vet the bill and hear from stakeholders and members of the public.

   2023, “How a Bill Becomes a Law”, in mnnurses.org

   Synonyms: evaluate

plural VETs

1. abbreviationcountableinitialismuncountableeducationInitialism of vocational education and training.
2. abbreviationcountableinitialismbroadcastingInitialism of video editing terminal.