Etymology From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), perhaps from a late PIE root Proto-Indo-European *kedʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”) or wanderwort. Cognate with North Frisian and Danish hat (“hat”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“hat”), Finnish hattu (“hat”), Latin cassis (“helmet”), Lithuanian kudas (“bird's crest or tuft”), Avestan 𐬑𐬀𐬊𐬛𐬀 (xaoda, “hat”), Persian خود (xud, “helmet”), Welsh cadw (“to provide for, ensure”). Compare also hood.
Business, Clothing, Fashion, Lifestyle, Manufacturing, Textiles A covering for the head, often in the approximate form of a cone, dome or cylinder closed at its top end, and sometimes having a brim and other decoration.
There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0091:
Denzel walks. Will Smith walks. Mark Wahlberg is wearing a hat!2009, “Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions”performed by Andy Samberg, Will Ferrell, and J. J. Abrams:
2
Figuratively A particular role or capacity that a person might fill.
It's all a matter of hats, Minister.1980 March 3, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “The Official Visit”, in Yes Minister, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds):
My mother was wearing several hats in the early fifties: hostess, scout, wife, and mother.1993, Susan Loesser, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life: A Portrait by His Daughter, Hal Leonard Corporation, published 2000, →ISBN, page 121:
3
Figuratively Any receptacle from which names or numbers are pulled out in a lottery.
The third type of function allows you to check on the state of the joystick's buttons, axes, hats, and balls.2002, Ernest Pazera, Focus on SDL, page 139:
I’lll have to leave it up to antiques experts to tell you when objects were marked that way, but I can tell you it’s called a “hacek” (with the hat over the “c” and pronounced “hacheck”.) It is used to show that a “c” is pronounced as “ch” and an “s” as “sh.” Sometimes linguists just call it the “hat.”1997 October 6th, “Patricia V. Lehman” (user name), rec.antiques (Usenet newsgroup), “Re: Unusual Mark – made in Cechoslovakia”, Message ID: <34390399.BD7@umich.edu>#1/1
Internet User rights on a website, such as the right to edit pages others cannot.
10
Obsolete A student who is also the son of a nobleman (and so allowed to wear a hat instead of a mortarboard).
Cambridge University slang
I knew intimately all the 'Hats' in the University, and I was henceforth looked up to by the 'Caps,' as if my head had gained the height of every hat that I knew.1830, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter 32, in Paul Clifford:
Etymology From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), perhaps from a late PIE root Proto-Indo-European *kedʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”) or wanderwort. Cognate with North Frisian and Danish hat (“hat”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“hat”), Finnish hattu (“hat”), Latin cassis (“helmet”), Lithuanian kudas (“bird's crest or tuft”), Avestan 𐬑𐬀𐬊𐬛𐬀 (xaoda, “hat”), Persian خود (xud, “helmet”), Welsh cadw (“to provide for, ensure”). Compare also hood.
1
To place a hat on.
After the maids had hatted and gloved the girls, the carriage was summoned and I was carted around one church after another.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN:
2
To appoint as cardinal.
It was truly a breathtaking rise. From the quiet school, Pope Pius XI had jumped Father Verdier over the heads of innumerable Bishops, made him Archbishop of Paris. Soon he was to be hatted a Prince of the Church and put in charge of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.1929 December 2, “Five New Hats”, in Time:
3
To shop for hats.
We might just go hatting this afternoon […]1920, Katharine Metcalf Roof, The Great Demonstration, page 122:
Watt's need of semantic succour was at times so great that he would set to trying names on things, and on himself, almost as a woman hats.1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC: