different between retting vs ratting

English

Etymology

ret +? -ing

Noun

retting (countable and uncountable, plural rettings)

1. The act or process of preparing flax for use by soaking, maceration, and similar processes.
2. A place where flax is retted; a rettery.

Synonyms

• (preparation of flax): rotting

Verb

retting

1. present participle of ret

References

1839, Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines

Anagrams

• gittern, gritten

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From rette +? -ing.

Noun

retting f (definite singular rettinga, indefinite plural rettingar, definite plural rettingane)

1. correction
2. grading (of a test or similar)

References

• “retting” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

English

Verb

ratting

1. present participle of rat

   Don't go ratting to the police about what happened.

Noun

ratting (usually uncountable, plural rattings)

1. (archaic) The blood sport of setting a dog upon rats confined in a pit to see how many he will kill in a given time.
   • 1993, Ronald H. Fritze, James Stuart Olson, Randy Roberts, Reflections on World Civilization: A Reader (volume 2, page 102)

     Henry Mayhew, the nineteenth-century chronicler of London's underworld, described the frenzied activity of one ratting contest. A terrier — the best of ratting dogs — was placed into a pit with 50 rats.

   • 2001, Colin D. Howell, Blood, Sweat and Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada

     Bear and bull baiting, dog fights, cockfighting, ratting, and other blood sports were attacked as un-Christian […]

   • 2008, Rob Boddice, A History of Attitudes and Behaviours Toward Animals in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain (page 257)

     The RSPCA were well aware that ratting was legally ambiguous, and when they received a report of a conviction for ratting in Hull in 1868 they doubted the legality of it.

   • 2008, Benjamin G. Rader, Baseball: A History of America's Game (page 12)

     Such men usually satisfied their needs for leisure in the patronage of saloons or in such “blood” sports as cockfights or rattings.
2. (uncountable) A vocation involving the pest control of rats, typically using a working terrier.
3. Desertion of one's principles.
4. Working as a scab, against trade union policies.

See also

• (blood sport): rat-baiting

Anagrams

• tarting