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vat

/væt/noun, verb, adjective

vat is spelled V-A-T: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, vat means “A large tub, such as is used for making wine or for tanning” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of vat is vats.

How many letters and syllables are in vat?

Letters3: V-A-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing3.5 times per million words; the 14,106th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is vat?

Vat appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce vat?

  • /væt/

Vat has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-vat.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-VAT.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of vat

  • vats plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • vatting participle, present
  • vatted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does vat mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A large tub, such as is used for making wine or for tanning.

    a vat of liquid

  2. 2

    A square, hollow place on the back of a calcining furnace, where tin ore is laid to dry.

  3. 3

    A vessel for holding holy water.

  4. 4

    datedA liquid measure and dry measure; especially, a liquid measure in Belgium and Holland, corresponding to the hectolitre of the metric system, which contains 22.01 imperial gallons, or 26.4 standard gallons in the United States.

verb

  1. 1

    To put into a vat.

  2. 2

    To blend (wines or spirits) in a vat; figuratively, to mix or blend elements as if with wines or spirits.

adjective

  1. 1

    Designating a vat dye.

    vat red

noun

as VAT
  1. 1

    Initialism of value added tax.

  2. 2

    Initialism of vigilance awareness training.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Vat in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcuve (a large tub, such as is used for making wine or…), TVA (initialism for value-added tax – see also value…)
GermanBottich, Trog, Wanne, Schaff (a large tub, such as is used for making wine or…), MwSt. (initialism for value-added tax – see also value…)
Portuguesetonel, tina (a large tub, such as is used for making wine or…), IVA (initialism for value-added tax – see also value…)
Spanishcuba, tina (a large tub, such as is used for making wine or…), IVA, IGV (initialism for value-added tax – see also value…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does vat come from?

Inherited from Middle English vat, a dialectal variant of fat (“vat, vessel, cask”), from Old English fæt (“vat, vessel”), from Proto-West Germanic *fat, from Proto-Germanic *fatą (“vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *pod- (“vessel”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after vat