Other forms: brats
A brat is a badly behaved child. A spoilt brat, that little brat, brats in the street.
It blames the child for what is usually the upbringing, which is why spoilt brat is the fuller phrase. Army brat is a settled and unmalicious term for a child raised on postings. Note that the origin is uncertain, and that it may have been slang for a beggar's child.
1nounbratA badly behaved child.
“The spoilt brat screamed until his parents bought him the toy.”
brat is a badly behaved child.
Brat appears about 1500 as slang for a beggar's child. Its origin is uncertain.
Old English
bratt — cloak
Scots
bratchet — bitch, hound
English, today
brat
Built from
Early Modern English (c. 1500) slang term meaning "beggar's child". Possibly from Scots bratchet (“bitch, hound”), in which case it would be a a doublet of brachet. Another possibility is that it was originally a dialectal word, from northern and western England and the Midlands, for a "makeshift or ragged garment," from Old English bratt (“cloak”), which is from a cel - source (Old Irish - brat (“cloak, cloth”)). In the sense "characteristic of a confident and assertive woman", coined by Charli XCX in her 2024 album Brat, though occasional earlier uses of the word with a "reclaimed" or ironic, positive connotation existed, including in LGBTQ slang for people of certain femme or feminine-leaning personalities.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA