wat

Pluralwats

1. 1
   pronouncolloquial

   Informal alternative spelling of what, used in texting and online.

   Wat? I couldn't hear you over the traffic.

   He asked me wat I had done with the keys.

   Note

   A respelling of what made for comic effect, at home in internet and text-message writing. It changes nothing in the grammar. Wat asks questions and introduces clauses meaning 'the thing that' exactly as what does. Keep it to chat and messages, because in any other writing it reads as a joke or a slip.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A Southeast Asian temple devoted to Buddhist worship, especially one in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia.

   Pilgrims gathered at the wat to offer flowers and incense.

   Cambodia's countryside is dotted with ancient wats.

   Note

   A borrowing from Thai, and the word inside a famous name: Angkor Wat. Sir John Bowring uses it plainly in The kingdom and people of Siam (1857), stopping 'at a wat' to rest his boatmen. A wat is more than a place of worship, because it also serves its community socially. Three unrelated words share this spelling: this one, the Ethiopian stew, and an online respelling of what.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A stew or curry that is a common dish in the cooking of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

   The restaurant's lamb wat arrived bubbling hot, ladled over injera.

   Cooks across the region prepare different wats for festive meals.

   Note

   A cook's word borrowed from Amharic, and it takes the English plural readily: Steven Barboza wrote in 1987 of 'the stews called wats.' Two other Ethiopian words usually travel with it. Berbere is the volcanic pepper-and-spice seasoning widely used in the cooking, and injera is the spongy flatbread a wat is eaten with.

4. 4
   determinercolloquial

   Informal alternative spelling of what, used in texting and online.

   Wat kind of music do you usually listen to?

   I forgot wat day the meeting was moved to.

   Note

   Before a noun, wat picks one option out of an open set: wat kind, wat day, wat time. It also opens exclamations of the wat a mess type. Rosie DiManno in 2009 reproduces 'Omg wat if yu get arrested b4 yur bdai,' where it sits beside yu and b4. That company of clipped spellings is its natural register.

5. 5
   adverbcolloquial

   Informal alternative spelling of what, used in texting and online.

   Wat with the holidays approaching, the shops were packed.

   We barely slept, wat with the neighbors' party next door.

   Note

   Most adverbial uses come in one fixed phrase, what with, which introduces a cause. The respelling also covers the questioning adverb meaning 'to what extent' or 'in what way', as in wat does it matter? Like the pronoun respelling, it belongs to playful online writing. Standard prose keeps the full spelling.

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