What does "rabbit" mean?

1. (the animal) a small animal with long ears, long back legs, and a soft, round tail. 2. (pacesetter) a runner who starts a race very fast to help others set a record. 3. (to talk a lot) to talk for a long time about things that are not important. 4. (to run away) to run away quickly because of fear.

rabbit — meaning, definition & examples

Word

01the animal

A1 · Beginner Countable noun

n. a small animal with long ears, long back legs, and a soft, round tail.

n. a burrowing, gregarious mammal of the family Leporidae, characterized by long ears and a short, tufted tail.

“A small brown rabbit hopped across the garden and disappeared into the bushes.”

“The population of wild rabbits in the valley has increased significantly since the local predators moved further into the mountains.”

Synonyms

bunny hare

02pacesetter

C1 · Advanced Countable noun Sports Technical

n. a runner who starts a race very fast to help others set a record.

n. a runner or cyclist who leads the first part of a race to ensure a fast pace for a teammate or to break a record.

“The lead runner acted as a rabbit for the first three laps before dropping out.”

“The world record attempt was facilitated by two professional rabbits who maintained a punishing pace for the first five thousand metres.”

Synonyms

pacesetter

03to talk a lot

C1 · Advanced British English · Informal

v. to talk for a long time about things that are not important.

v. to talk incessantly or at length about trivial matters; often used with the particle 'on'.

“He started to rabbit on about his old car, and I couldn't get a word in.”

“She has a tendency to rabbit on about her domestic troubles whenever we meet for a professional lunch.”

Usage

Usually appears as the phrasal verb 'rabbit on'.

Synonyms

babble chatter ramble

04to run away

C2 · Proficiency American English · Slang

v. to run away quickly because of fear.

v. to flee or depart hurriedly, often out of fear or to avoid capture.

“As soon as the police car turned the corner, the suspects started to rabbit.”

“The witness claimed that the driver decided to rabbit the moment he saw the flashing lights in his rearview mirror.”

Synonyms

bolt flee run

From Middle English rabet, rabette, from Anglo-Latin rabettus, from dialectal Old French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (“rabbit, seal”), of uncertain origin; possibly some imitative verb, maybe robben, rubben (“to rub”) is used here to allude to a characteristic of the animal. See rub. Related forms include Middle French rabouillet (“baby rabbit”) and in French rabot (“plane”)), coming via Walloon Old French (reflected nowadays as Walloon robète (“rabbit”)), from Middle Dutch robbe ("rabbit; seal"; whence Modern Dutch rob (“rabbit", also "seal”)); also Middle Low German robbe, rubbe (“rabbit”), and the later German Low German Rubbe, Robb (“seal”), West Frisian robbe (“seal”), Saterland Frisian Rubbe (“seal”), North Frisian rob (“seal”), borrowed into German Robbe (“seal”). Meant "young rabbit" until the 19th c., when it came to replace the original general term cony, owing to the latter's resemblance to and use as a euphemism for cunny, "vulva" (compare ass and donkey). Note that there is no inherited Germanic word for rabbits, since hares are the only leporids native to Britain (as with all of Europe outside the Iberian Peninsula and southwest France); rabbits were introduced from France in the late Middle Ages, likely after the Norman Invasion. (Fittingly, hare is indeed inherited from Proto-Germanic.)

From Cockney rhyming slang rabbit and pork, to talk.

Perhaps a corruption of rabate.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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