Other forms: spats
A spat is a short petty quarrel. A public spat, a spat over money, have a spat.
It is trivial by definition — a spat blows over, where a row and a feud do not — and journalists use it constantly for disagreements between public figures. There are two other spats: the cloth cover once worn over the shoe and ankle, which survives in old photographs and in cartoon villains; and spat as the past tense of spit, which is the commonest use of the letters by far.
1nounspatA short petty quarrel.
“The two neighbours had a spat over a parked car, but they were friends again by Sunday.”
2nounclothA cloth cover worn over the shoe and ankle.
“The old gentleman wore white spats over his polished black shoes.”
spat is a small quarrel, or a shoe cover.
The quarrel sense appeared in eighteenth-century American English and is probably imitative of a small slap. The shoe cover is short for spatterdash, and the past tense of spit is a different word entirely.
Old English
spittan
English, today
spat
From Old English spittan, spætan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA