A
Aeratted: Said of a garment that has acquired so many chewed holes as to now be considered summer attire.
Alphamosity: The rampant animosity exhibited by alphas when they meet new rats.
Alpha Romeo: A dominant buck who has the style, performance and speed to reach the girl rat cage before his owner realises he's escaped.
Aquafrenzy: A fit of uncontrollable terror involving anatomically inconceivable twisting and writhing, ear piercing screeching and maniacal claw shredding exerted by a rat who dislikes baths.
Aromatherapee: An ancient technique by which rats can turn their pee into various odors pleasing to their rat loving humans, such as cinnamon muffins and warm corn chips. (see also Furomatherapy, Peeterent and Peeseekery)
Awra: The luminous air about a ratty due to his whiskers and soft furriness, that when seen in the light causes an involuntary "Awwwwwwwww...." from the viewer.
B
Bacupuncture: An alternative healing method performed by rats who use their claws to cling to the area between your shoulder blades where you cannot remove them without assistance.
Berko: Describes a person who is fanatically crazy about rats with white bellies.
Boggling: The creepily charming ability of rats to bulge their eyeballs out of their sockets and vibrate them when particularly happy or content.
BooBoolean Command: The phenomenon where your rat decides to play on your computer keyboard while you're using google, and you end up searching for "sllllvmmbkppf34-0--34rjse'39ksp;;;;;;;;... with no website results found.
Bouquet de Buck: the rich studly aroma of musky male rat, with overtones of corn tortilla, spicy cinnamon and a subtle hint of pee. Mmmmmm. (see also Eau de Doe)
Brusking: The irresistible performance of a hungry rat, begging and eye boggling for yogurt drops.
Bruxing: The complete ratty repertoire involving fooffing of air, chattering and grinding of teeth, and bulging eye boggling that indicates a happy or contented rat. (see also Boggling and Fooffery)
Bruxtaposition: The condition of having a happy rat sit next to you on the sof
Buck grease: The orange oily dandruffy gunk that overly hormonal boy rats sometimes get on their backs.
Bucksome: Healthily plump and ample of male rat rump.
Bucktion: The irresistible force that attracts people to big, lazy, squishy male rats.
Buckwurst: Descriptive term for a lazy old male rat who enjoys his food so much that he resembles a large furry Germanic sausage.
Bumbleball: Unfortunate affliction caused by the friction of continued dragging of large testicles over everything.
Bummer: The phrase often exclaimed when a rat wipes his/her squishy raisins all over you.
C
Cage fright: The instantaneous horror that you feel when you're sitting at your desk at work and the realisation dawns on you that you've left the rat cage door open at home.
Chewelry: Personal adornments that have been improved by artistic rattie designers.
Claustrophrenia: The frenetic madness exhibited by rats who, having spent the entire day happily abiding in their ample cage, suddenly find the space utterly unbearable. The resulting conniptions are often triggered by a delay in their normal daily scheduled out time, or observation of another rat getting free range time before them.
Claw warning: A simple request to our rats to yell "I'm coming!" before they leap onto our bare flesh with claws outstretched... rather than leaping first, scaring the bejeezus out of us, and then announcing cheerfully "I'm here!".
Clawdacity: The intrepid boldness with which rats recklessly climb your bare skin with complete disregard to your comfort or screams of protest.
Corn grooming: The systematic repetitive linear grooming pattern rats often apply to their cagemates, which is reminiscent of eating a cob of corn.
Crammock: The term given to a hammock straining to support more rats than it's structurally capable of holding.
Cross Scritch: A crafty technique requiring the skill of petting two rats at once on different sides of your lap.
Curtailer: A person harboring the completely unfounded, ignorant belief that rat tails are cold, scaly and horrible and they'd be better off without them.
D
Dampressionism: An artistic style of watercolour painting involving the use of one's tail as a pee paintbrush.
Dawnfall: The sudden degenerative state within your rat cage should you accidentally sleep in past your rats' usual morning free range time.
Demarkation: The act of removing alpha rat pee from throughout your house.
Deturdant: The latest miracle cleaning product on the market for removing rat raisins stuck on your furniture, carpet, clothes, curtains, pillow case, bath towels, etc.
Drive-by grooming: A heartless crime whereby an alpha rat will stride up to an innocent bystander, furiously groom the victim's head, and then continue on his way as though nothing happened.
Dropsy: A hyperactivity disorder in rats caused by eating way too many sugary yogurt treats.
E
Eau de Doe: That irresistibly tantalising scent that sends bucks wild with passionate distraction. (see also Bouquet de Buck)
Exherbitionist: A rat who has a compulsive desire to draw attention to itself by digging up pot plants.
Exvermination: The act of removing all traces of your pet rats from view when your landlord is about to visit.
F
Fibervore: An animal that grazes on socks, your favourite t-shirt, carpet, sofa cushions and other soft furnishings.
Flash Animation: The blind frenzy a rat goes into when unexpectedly subjected to a camera lighting system. (see also Vampire Rat)
NEW!
Fluffy Fund: A rat health insurance plan that involves keeping an extra layer of squish on a rat to provide a buffer in case of illness.
Fooffery: The impressive array of cheerful noises a rat will make when excited, specifically involving puffing air in and out of the mouth rapidly. (see also Bruxing and Boggling)
Furabdophile: A person with an inexplicable and irresistible attraction to rat bellies, and is unrepentant in their need to kiss every soft fuzzy one they encounter.
Furgiveness: The amazing ability rats have to be forgiven for anything just because they're cute and furry.
Furomatherapy: The joy and peace one gets from sticking one's nose into rat fur and inhaling deeply.
Fuzzbutt: An endearing nickname for your furry loved ones; also the image of a rat usually recorded by photographic film.
Fuzzlet: An affectionate name for a young rat, along with ratlet, ratling, kitten, ritten, pup, etc.
G
Gnawtification: A formal indication that your rat was here.
Groominate: To subconsciously and incessantly clean oneself while pondering life and the universe.
Grottofication: The satisfaction one derives from providing their ratties with an extra large, fun, clean, safe place to live.
H
Heat wave: The courtship process whereby a female rat wiggles her ears at a potential male across the room.
h**l raisin': When your rat causes trouble by depositing a wet, squishy smelly p**p then steps in it and proceeds to drag it all over the house.
Homo norvegicus: A species of rat that thinks it's human (e.g. Homo norvegicus nimbii)
Honing stone: The rock or paver placed in a rat cage for the express purpose of keeping rat claws blunt, which is secretly utilised by the rats as a honing tool for precision sharpness.
I
Ickspression: The emphatic body language exhibited by a rat when fed something that tastes icky, usually observed as frantic chin rubbing along the floor.
Intolerodent: Said of a pitiful person who has an irrational, unreasonable and completely unfounded dislike of rats.
J
Jackhammer snout: a pneumatically operated power-sniffing tool used to extract even the smallest wisp of scent from surfaces via percussive impact.
K
Karatty: Skillful fleet-footed fighting technique involving kicks, twists and leaps used by smaller rats during fights with big alpha thugs.
L
Lashybug: Small dark delicate hairy insect that is irresistible to rats, commonly found fluttering around human eyes.
Literatty: Rats who like to chew scholarly or intellectually challenging books.
M
Madaptation: The remarkable ability of rats to change their daily schedule so that they are rampantly playful when their humans are sleepy.
Manxious: Overly worried that your new litter might not have tails.
Masokisstic: Said of a person who indulges in the irresistible pleasure of kissing rat bellies despite having resulting horrific allergic reactions to their fur.
Marinating: The act of sleeping in one's pee soaked bedding
Meducation: The end result of the many devious machinations required to get the rat on the outside of his meds. Also describes the remarkable and rapid learning by rat owners of the large array of drug uses and dosages for rats.
NEW!
Meep / Meeping / Meeper: The plaintive sound (usually in a whining tone) that a rat emits when being power groomed, shoved about, or otherwise unfairly picked on. In ratspeak "meep" is a shortened form of "Me Poor!" (or "Poor Me!"). Thus a "meeper" is a rat who meeps excessively.
Metamorfuzzus: A conditional response to spending too much time with one's rats, which results in the gradual transformation from human to more rat-like tendencies. e.g. stealing food out of other people's mouths, bruxing during romantic moments with your partner, and peeing on the sofa.
Mischief maker (a.k.a. Breeder): A person who deliberately amasses large numbers of rodents with the express purpose of distributing them to as many people as possible.
Moodging: An aussie slang term for holding your rat in both hands facing you and moving your fingers in a circular motion to massage them.
Mycophobia: An intense and irrational fear experienced by all rat owners at the first sign of a sneeze.
N
Nasal Spelunking: A recreational pursuit for rats who are skilled in facial cavity exploration.
New Rat Fever (NRF): A highly contagious and debilitating virus, often spread at rat shows. While medically incurable, sufferers are able to gain temporary relief by acquiring regular "hits" from unscrupulous ratlet peddlers.
Newton's Law of Rodent Physics 1: The harder one tries to prevent a rat from gnawing, the more determined a rat will be to gnaw.
Newton's Law of Rodent Physics 2: The volume of a nest box is equivalent to half the volume of the rats that are currently sleeping in it.
Nimitations: Wannabe big bad alpha rats (after Nimbus, the biggest baddest buck in the business)
Nipple-nipper: A rat with an unfortunate penchant for human mammary protrusions.
O
Omniratent: Having rats present in all parts of your house at all times.
P
Peasqueak: An insignificant or contemptible rat, outcast due to it's abnormal aversion to green peas.
Peckerish: Said of a rat who has a hunger for nipping delicate human male body parts.
Pednipology: The study of why rats love to bite socked toes.
Peeseekery: The act of searching in darkness for rat whiz using high tech, state of the art black light equipment.
Peeterrent: The unmistakable aroma of rat pee on your clothes that prevents non rat lovers from hitting on you.
Pewtophile: A lover of white rats.
Pissertive: Said of a rat owner who decidedly and confidently assumes the alpha role in their home by scent marking the cage and all the rats with their own urine (aka The Adamo Approach).
Pocratsinaction: To put off doing important work due to the overwhelming distraction of poking your rats awake to play with them.
Q
Quid pro doe: The means by which male rats will do anything you ask in exchange for just one sniff of a girl rat. (see also Eau de Doe)
R
Rat Couture: Exclusively re-modelled high fashion attire and general decor for the discerning ratlover.
Rat Room Netball: A skillful sport whereby you clean the rat cage, tidy up the room, and perform other important tasks with your feet firmly planted in the one position the entire time, so as not to squish free ranging rampant ratlets.
Ratalyst: An as yet unidentified substance present on rat fur that promotes the lowering of human willpower so that more rats are easily and rapidly absorbed into the household.
Rata-tatty: The point at which aeratted clothing can no longer be worn in public without legal repercussions.
Ratatonic (or Ratatonia): That pitiful look rats get when they are someplace they don't want to be and just sit stock still in spooked stoney silence (vet, outdoors, one room away from the vacuum cleaner, etc.).
Ratattoo: Scratches on your neck, arms and legs that indicate your membership to SORE (Society Of Rat Enthusiasts).
Ratification: A formal approval from your partner that you can modify the house, furniture and appliances in any way necessary to provide a safe, fun environment for free ranging rats.
Ratochistic: Said of one who derives pleasure from being scratched, peed on, enduring violent allergic reactions, picking up raisins, cleaning cages and spending all their money on rat food and vet bills.
Ratriarchy: A form of social organisation in which rats hold all of the power (common in most pet rat households).
Rattisphere: The small circle of friends who love your rats with which you socialise now that all your other old rat intolerant friends aren't welcome anymore. (See Intolerodent)
Rattitude: The cheeky, clever and defiant air of confidence exuded by all rats.
Rattorney: A rat able to weasel it's way out of damaging circumstances
Rattus stalactitus: The rare species of rat that has a propensity to hang upside down from wire cage lids.
Remarkable: The amazing way rats have to re-scent everything in the house over and over and over again.
Rexpectation: The state of hoping for a few curly whiskers in your next litter.
Rodentertainment: The joy and happiness you acquire from watching the comical and clever antics of your rats rather than television.
Rodentist: A rat skilled in human teeth cleaning and oral hygiene.
Rodentomontade: A long bragging speech where one boasts about the charm, cuteness and downright perfection of one's ratties.
S
Scentscape: The results of a rat's careful scent marking of his cage, getting all the different zones of the cage arranged in a delightful (to rats) scentsoria of odors.
Scentinel / Scentry: A pee drop placed at the border of a rat's territory to guard their domain from rogue rodent invaders.
SCUBRA: (Self Contained Under Blouse Rat Apparatus) A supportive undergarment worn by women for the express purpose of providing safe and comfortable shirt diving for their rats.
Self restraint: Control imposed by oneself when one sees a tank full of solid coloured ratlets for adoption in the pet shop.
Shredware: The high necked, long sleeved garments commonly worn by rat owners when playing with their rats.
Smug sluggery: The act whereby a rat lazes with his head lolling over the edge of his hammock, wearing a smugly contented expression.
Snottoisseur: A rat who has special skills in the gourmet art of used tissue eating.
Sofamorphism: The incredible ability of all rats to squish themselves into any shape in order to fit behind/inside large immovable furniture and household appliances.
Squat: Repetitive leg exercise performed by rat owners who wish to sit on their sofa, despite their rats' considering it their own personal territory.
Squirmish: A rambunctious fight for position on a lap involving more rats than the owner has hands for scritching.
Squish: A rat known for it's large soft cuddly form, which tends to go all limp and pliable when scritched. (See Ramekin The Squish)
Stashism: Political belief that all extra food and miscellaneous items should be stored for later use.
Stat!ic cling: The invisible attraction that draws and holds male rats to any item that female rats have touched. (see also Eau de Doe) This term evolved after I needed a crowbar to lever Stat! off my lap after I'd played with some girl rats.
Stynchronisation: The amazing coincidence that visitors always manage to drop in unannounced just before cage cleaning day when the whole house reeks of rat pee.
Suffosafe: The amazing ability of rats to breathe sufficient oxygen despite being on the bottom of a huge rat pile-up in the hammock.
T
The Badlands: Anywhere in your home that is out of bounds to rats (because they do bad things there) that they therefore spend all their free range time trying to sneak into.
Tomfooffery: Rats who are horsing around, and unrepentant in their silly behaviour. (see also Fooffery)
Treatise: A written document that states all owners are required by law to offer at least one yogurt drop per rat per day.
Treatoscopic: Describes rat eye-sight that, despite being generally poor, is somehow able to locate a treat you aren't sharing from 50 paces.
TwoRattes Syndrome: The involuntary utterance of a string of expletives, usually found to occur when attempting to place a pair of rodents safely into a single cage after free-range time.
U
Understudly: A rat who aspires to be alpha.
V
Vampire Rat: A rat who will not show up on photographic film, despite being in centre frame and in-focus moments before shutter release.
Vermen: Those wonderful rare human males who love rats. They often accept being second best in their partners affections (after the rats, of course), and cheerfully offer their hard earned cash to pay for and/or build every whim their rats might want or need.
W
Whizard: A rat who manages to pee in the most unexpected places.
Wildefuzz: An endearing term to describe any wild rodent.
X
Xenofaecalurker: A foreign, unidentifiable object found in your rat's raisin that you have no idea where it came from or how it got there.
Y
Yellow-belly: A rat too cowardly to admit he's been marinating in his own pee.
Z
Zoomerang: A rat who dashes out and about but periodically homes in on mom or dad to make sure everything's okay.
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