ratten means to sabotage machinery or tools as part of an industrial dispute, particularly the tools of a workman who went against the union. It carries an Arena rating of 1436, earned across 16 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, ratten ranks #754 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #1,205 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #1,279 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #1,529 of 17,131 for Scariest Words.
Why “ratten” is a great word
To sabotage the machinery or tools of a specific worker who defies union dictates, as a covert act of industrial discipline. From the noun 'rat', alluding to the mischievous or destructive behavior associated with the animal, with the verbal suffix '-en'. First attested in 1842. Unlike 'sabotage', a broad and impersonal campaign of obstruction, or 'strike', a collective and public withdrawal of labor, to ratten is a precise, clandestine punishment, a targeted dismantling of one dissenter's livelihood. It is the silent theft of a spindle from a weaver's loom in the dead of night, the hidden file used to grind a gear tooth to powder, the hollow clatter of a shuttle that will no longer fly true—a grim reminder that solidarity, when enforced, carries the sharp, intimate bite of betrayal.
Etymology
The verbal sense is from the notion of causing mischief like a rat.
verb
- To sabotage machinery or tools as part of an industrial dispute, particularly the tools of a workman who went against the union.e.g.“Did you also employ them to ratten people if they had broken any rules of your society, for instance, by having too many apprentices?” — 1867, Report Presented to the Trades Unions Commissioners by the Examiners Appointed to Inquire Into Acts of Intimidation, Outrage, Or Wrong Alleged to Have Been Promoted, Encouraged, Or Connived at b
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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