"plague rat" meaning in All languages combined

See plague rat on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: plague rats [plural]
Etymology: Modern sense coined during the COVID-19 pandemic as a reference to rats being a common carrier of disease, possibly also looking at the role of rats in the Black Plague and influenced by the use of "rat" as a derogatory insult in general. Head templates: {{en-noun}} plague rat (plural plague rats)
  1. A rat which acts as a vector of the plague; a sewer rat. Categories (topical): Coronavirus Categories (lifeform): Murids
    Sense id: en-plague_rat-en-noun-ZwhAS8jQ Disambiguation of Coronavirus: 59 41 Disambiguation of Murids: 76 24 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 73 27 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 71 29 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 72 28
  2. (derogatory, neologism) Someone who refuses to follow anti-pandemic rules and guidelines or even takes actions, such as attending unnecessary events, that promote the spread of illness. Tags: derogatory, neologism
    Sense id: en-plague_rat-en-noun-bvT~uMac Categories (other): English neologisms

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for plague rat meaning in All languages combined (3.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Modern sense coined during the COVID-19 pandemic as a reference to rats being a common carrier of disease, possibly also looking at the role of rats in the Black Plague and influenced by the use of \"rat\" as a derogatory insult in general.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plague rats",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "plague rat (plural plague rats)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "73 27",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "71 29",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "59 41",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Coronavirus",
          "orig": "en:Coronavirus",
          "parents": [
            "Disease",
            "Health",
            "Pathology",
            "Body",
            "Medicine",
            "Human",
            "Biology",
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "76 24",
          "kind": "lifeform",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Murids",
          "orig": "en:Murids",
          "parents": [
            "Rodents",
            "Mammals",
            "Vertebrates",
            "Chordates",
            "Animals",
            "Lifeforms",
            "All topics",
            "Life",
            "Fundamental",
            "Nature"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1903 February 8, The Truth, Sydney, page 3, column 4",
          "text": "She was found to be one of the type of white women whose nasal organs appear never to have been developed, and who take to the loathsome Mongolian and his filthy hovel as blithely as a plague rat to a sewer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A rat which acts as a vector of the plague; a sewer rat."
      ],
      "id": "en-plague_rat-en-noun-ZwhAS8jQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "vector",
          "vector"
        ],
        [
          "plague",
          "plague"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English neologisms",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 September 14, Ezra Lloyd, “Meet Sean Feucht: The Plague Rat Throwing ‘Worship Protests’ to Maskless Audiences Across The Country”, in Salt",
          "text": "This Plague Rat is planning superspreader events across the country and complaining that he and all of his prosperity gospel pals are “under attack”.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 23, Ed Hutcheson, “Letters: Take your medicine - Relearn the lessons of the 1600's”, in The Palm Beach Post",
          "text": "It’s a simple concept. You’re either contributing to humanity’s fight against this pestilence or you’re a plague rat. Don’t be a plague rat.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 January 2, Joel Maxwell, “I won't, can't, go home this summer”, in Sunday Star-Times, Wellington, New Zealand, page 14",
          "text": "People are waxing their surfboards, or whatever surf-people do, waxing their bodies, polishing up their summer reading lists, and googling sangria recipes: preparing to live their best plague-rat lives. This whole thing is crazy, and makes me uneasy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who refuses to follow anti-pandemic rules and guidelines or even takes actions, such as attending unnecessary events, that promote the spread of illness."
      ],
      "id": "en-plague_rat-en-noun-bvT~uMac",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory, neologism) Someone who refuses to follow anti-pandemic rules and guidelines or even takes actions, such as attending unnecessary events, that promote the spread of illness."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "neologism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Black Plague",
    "COVID-19 pandemic"
  ],
  "word": "plague rat"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "en:Coronavirus",
    "en:Murids"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Modern sense coined during the COVID-19 pandemic as a reference to rats being a common carrier of disease, possibly also looking at the role of rats in the Black Plague and influenced by the use of \"rat\" as a derogatory insult in general.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plague rats",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "plague rat (plural plague rats)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1903 February 8, The Truth, Sydney, page 3, column 4",
          "text": "She was found to be one of the type of white women whose nasal organs appear never to have been developed, and who take to the loathsome Mongolian and his filthy hovel as blithely as a plague rat to a sewer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A rat which acts as a vector of the plague; a sewer rat."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "vector",
          "vector"
        ],
        [
          "plague",
          "plague"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English neologisms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2020 September 14, Ezra Lloyd, “Meet Sean Feucht: The Plague Rat Throwing ‘Worship Protests’ to Maskless Audiences Across The Country”, in Salt",
          "text": "This Plague Rat is planning superspreader events across the country and complaining that he and all of his prosperity gospel pals are “under attack”.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 23, Ed Hutcheson, “Letters: Take your medicine - Relearn the lessons of the 1600's”, in The Palm Beach Post",
          "text": "It’s a simple concept. You’re either contributing to humanity’s fight against this pestilence or you’re a plague rat. Don’t be a plague rat.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 January 2, Joel Maxwell, “I won't, can't, go home this summer”, in Sunday Star-Times, Wellington, New Zealand, page 14",
          "text": "People are waxing their surfboards, or whatever surf-people do, waxing their bodies, polishing up their summer reading lists, and googling sangria recipes: preparing to live their best plague-rat lives. This whole thing is crazy, and makes me uneasy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who refuses to follow anti-pandemic rules and guidelines or even takes actions, such as attending unnecessary events, that promote the spread of illness."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(derogatory, neologism) Someone who refuses to follow anti-pandemic rules and guidelines or even takes actions, such as attending unnecessary events, that promote the spread of illness."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "neologism"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Black Plague",
    "COVID-19 pandemic"
  ],
  "word": "plague rat"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.