Word
shat
UK/ʃˈæt/
Definition
v. the past tense of 'shit'. You use it to say someone went to the bathroom or to describe making a big mess of a situation.
v. the past tense and past participle of 'shit'. Refers to the act of defecating or, metaphorically, to ruining a situation through poor judgment.
Examples
“The bird shat on the hood of my car.”
“He realized he had shat the bed regarding the contract negotiations by mentioning the price too early.”
“The stray cat shat in the corner of the garage, leaving a pungent reminder of its overnight visit that took hours to properly clean.”
Examples
simple
“The bird shat on the hood of my car.”
contextual
“He realized he had shat the bed regarding the contract negotiations by mentioning the price too early.”
complex
“The stray cat shat in the corner of the garage, leaving a pungent reminder of its overnight visit that took hours to properly clean.”
Usage
The verb is the irregular past tense form; 'shitted' is also used but is less common in many dialects.
Pitfall
He has shat the door
He has shut the door
Learners may confuse the vulgar past tense 'shat' with the common verb 'shut' due to similar vowel sounds.
Etymology
A late innovation, apparently by analogy with sit → sat; spit → spat, etc. First recorded in the eighteenth century. Compare Old English sċāt.
From Arabic شَطّ (šaṭṭ); see chott; for the spelling, compare Shatt al-Arab.
Sometimes said to be a shortening of an obsolete word (*)shattle (“needle”), but more likely a shortening of the synonymous (pine) shatter.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/shat