English Explanatory Dictionary

Norway rat

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus).

Word forms

Norway rat Norway rats

Etymology

The common name was popularised (and perhaps coined) by English naturalist John Berkenhout, in his Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain (1769). Berkenhout believed the species migrated to England from Norwegian ships in 1728; he is also responsible for the scientific name.

Synonyms

Norwegian rat sewer rat
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on N Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary