rat (on)

Definition of rat (on)next
1
as in to split (on)
to give information (as to the authorities) about another's improper or unlawful activities how much—or how little—did the fuzz have to pay you to rat on us?

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
as in to desert
to leave (a cause or party) often in order to take up another many party operatives ratted on the senator's candidacy once her poll numbers started to slip

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for rat (on)
Verb
  • Fedorov, the new defense minister, acknowledges the scale of the problem, telling the Ukrainian parliament some 2 million people are ignoring their call-up papers, while 200,000 others have deserted.
    Andrew Carey, CNN Money, 3 Feb. 2026
  • About a third of Californians live in what’s called the wildland-urban-interface, where human settlements overlap with wildlife habitat like forests, mountain foothills or desert open space, Crowfoot said.
    Sharon Bernstein, Sacbee.com, 28 Jan. 2026
Verb
  • Pohlad, who went to Georgia to meet with Byron Buxton and California to talk to Joe Ryan, has also recently been tapping into the knowledge of former players, including the rotating cast of television analysts.
    Betsy Helfand, Twin Cities, 16 Feb. 2026
  • As is her nature, Hudson talks openly and honestly about how being a mother has intertwined with her career.
    Amy Amatangelo, Los Angeles Times, 16 Feb. 2026
Verb
  • The Indiana Court of Appeals rejected a Gary man’s bid last week to cut his sentence for attacking multiple women.
    Meredith Colias-Pete, Chicago Tribune, 17 Feb. 2026
  • Like in the case of Adam Hart, who rejected a digital verdict in order to protect a patient’s lungs, the ultimate value of the nurse in the age of AI may be not their ability to follow the prompt but their willingness to override it.
    Hilke Schellmann, Scientific American, 17 Feb. 2026
Verb
  • Prioritize your safety by staying informed and prepared.
    Southern California Weather Report, Daily News, 18 Feb. 2026
  • The Declaration mandates no particular American foreign policy, but the values the document embodies have always informed it, even as American statesmen have struggled to reconcile the country’s many mundane interests with the principles that gave it birth.
    Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic, 17 Feb. 2026
Verb
  • One is that OpenAI’s board has apparently abandoned its mission of safety.
    Alnoor Ebrahim, The Conversation, 13 Feb. 2026
  • The tech mogul, who helped found OpenAI, sued Altman and the company in 2024, accusing them of abandoning the firm’s founding values and manipulating him into investing in the ChatGPT maker.
    Julia Shapero, The Hill, 13 Feb. 2026
Verb
  • Washington has upped pressure in a bid to replace Havana’s communist regime, cutting off oil shipments and, by extension, the economy.
    Jeronimo Gonzalez, semafor.com, 17 Feb. 2026
  • First responders cut off her camo shorts to care for her that day, and a photo of the shorts was shown in court.
    Eric Levenson, CNN Money, 17 Feb. 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Rat (on).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rat%20%28on%29. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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