# hat

Pronunciation: say "HAT" /hæt/

## Noun

1. A covering for the head, often shaped like a cone, dome, or cylinder closed at the top, sometimes with a brim and decoration.
   - Simple: A soft or hard covering you wear on your head, often with a round top and sometimes a brim.
   - _The wide-brimmed hat shaded her face from the afternoon sun._
   - _He tipped his hat politely as the women passed._
2. A particular role or capacity in which someone acts, including a role on a website that carries special permissions.
   - Simple: A job or role someone has, including one that gives them special rights on a website.
   - _Wearing her hat as treasurer, she questioned the budget figures._
   - _He had to switch hats from designer to salesman during the meeting._
3. A container from which names or numbers are drawn at random, or the random draw itself.
   - Simple: A container that names or numbers are picked from by chance, or the drawing done this way.
   - _Each member tossed a folded note into the hat for the prize drawing._
   - _After shaking the hat, the chairman pulled out a slip and read the winner's name to the room._

## Verb

4. To place a hat on a person's head.
   - Simple: To put a hat onto someone's head.
5. To go shopping in search of hats to purchase.
   - Simple: To go shopping to look for hats to buy.

## Noun

6. A nobleman's son at university, whose rank entitled him to wear a hat rather than a mortarboard. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A student who was a nobleman's son and could wear a normal hat, not a square cap.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The caret symbol, ^.
- (noun) A small multi-directional switch on a joystick, operated with the thumb to shift viewpoint or trigger inputs.
- (noun) The háček, or caron, a small v-shaped diacritic placed above certain letters to change their sound.
- (verb) To appoint as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

## Origin

Proto-Germanic *hattuz ("hat") gave Old English hætt and Middle English hat. Its own source may be a late Proto-Indo-European root *kedʰ- ("to guard, cover, protect"), or it may be a wanderwort, a word that spread widely between languages. Danish hat, Swedish hatt, and Icelandic hattur are related, and a disputed connection has been proposed with Latin cassis ("helmet").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/hat (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).