🇯🇵Japanese Source WordCode: JA

どぶ

Pronunciation / Transliteration: dobu

🇬🇧 Direct English Meaning:
Rathole/ˈræt.hoʊl/
nounverbCEFR C1 (Advanced)Top #14200 frequency
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🇯🇵 Example Sentence in Japanese:

"あんな汚いアパートには住みたくない。"

Comprehensive Definitions & Senses

2 senses
As noun
  1. 1

    A small, squalid, wretched, or dilapidated place.

    "He spent years living in a depressing rathole before finally affording a decent apartment."
  2. 2

    A futile destination or channel into which money, time, or resources are endlessly and hopelessly lost.

    "Pouring more funds into the failing startup is just throwing good money down a rathole."

Thesaurus & Semantic Spectrum

Synonyms (3)
Antonyms & Contrasting Words (1)

Linguistic Origin & Historical Etymology

Derived from the combination of 'rat' (Old English 'ræt') and 'hole' (Old English 'hol'), originally referring literally to the nest or burrow of a rodent. By the 19th century, the term evolved metaphorically in North American English to describe any cramped, squalid, or worthless space, and later expanded into idioms denoting total loss or waste.

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