Dictionary

latrate en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /læˈtreɪt/
• /ləˈtreɪt/
• /leɪˈtreɪt/

Etymology

First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin lātrātus, perfect passive participle of lātrō (“to bark”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Compare Spanish ladrar (“to bark”). Originally seemingly attested as a ghost word.

Meanings

1. (rare) To bark; to make doglike noises.
   • Latrate, to barke like a dog. [1623, Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionarie Of 1623, New York: Huntington Press, published 1930, s.v., page 110:
   • I once saw a big dog plunging out furiously at a passing car, and, as I watched him, his gait looked peculiar. The reason for this eccentricity became clear when he returned from his latrating orgy: he had only three legs. 1928, Charles Hall Grandgent, Prunes and Prism: With Other Odds and Ends, page 145:
   • […] Rip ought to know there wasn’t a beggar’s chance of catching one of the birds; all the silly, latrating dogs thus showed off. 1931, Harry Kemp, Love Among the Cape Enders, page 91:
   • With everything boiling over; with everyone rapping, yakking or latrating, it would restore dignity to a number of America’s newspapers if the objectivity of their reporting would harden in direct proportion to the subjectivity of the story being reported. 1972, Max Wylie, 400 Miles from Harlem: Courts, Crime, and Correction, page 201:

Forms

Relateds

latrability · latration · latrant · oblatration