Noun

(en noun)

(zoology) A medium-sized rodent belonging to the genus Rattus .

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Charles T. Ambrose

, title= Alzheimer’s Disease , volume=101, issue=3, page=200, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.}}

(informal) A term indiscriminately applied to numerous members of several rodent families (e.g. voles and mice) having bodies longer than about 12 cm, or 5 inches.

(informal) A person who is known for betrayal; a scoundrel; a quisling.

* 1883 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Treasure Island)

He’s more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house.

(informal) An informant or snitch.

(slang) A person who routinely spends time at a particular location.

Scab.

Vagina.

A wad of shed hair used as part of a hairstyle.

Noun

(en noun)

A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.

* (John Dryden)

The dewy paths of meadows we will tread.

* , chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

A course taken.

* 1900 , , , Chapter I,

Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk in this direction.

(paganism) A Pagan tradition, for example witchcraft, Wicca, druidism, Heathenry.

A metaphorical course.

A method or direction of proceeding.

* Bible, Psalms xxv. 10

All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.

* Gray

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

(computing) A human-readable specification for a location within a hierarchical or tree-like structure, such as a file system or as part of a URL

(graph theory) A sequence of vertices]] from one vertex to another using the arcs ([[edge, edges). A path does not visit the same vertex more than once (unless it is a closed path , where only the first and the last vertex are the same).

(topology) A continuous map $f$ from the unit interval $I\; =\; [0,1]$ to a topological space $X$.