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tatter

UK/ˈtætə(ɹ)/US/ˈtætə(ɹ)/
nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: tatters

A tatter is a torn hanging strip of cloth. Hanging in tatters, tatters of a flag, torn to tatters.

It is nearly always plural, and in tatters is the fixed phrase, used as much of reputations and plans as of clothes. The Old Norse behind it meant a rag or patch.

Definitions of tatter

  1. 1nountatterA torn hanging strip of cloth.B2

    “Tatters of the old curtain still hung from the broken window.”

tatter is a strip.

Where it comes from

Old Norse totturr means a rag or tatter.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *tat(t)uraz — tuft, patch

  2. Old Norse

    tǫturr

  3. Middle English

    tater

  4. English, today

    tatter

From Middle English tater, from Old Norse tǫturr, from Proto-Germanic tat(t)uraz (“tuft, patch”). Cognate with Icelandic tötur (“rag, tatter”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word