hat

Etymology 1

From Middle English hat, from Old English hætt, from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (“hat”), from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to guard, cover, care for, protect”). Cognate with North Frisian hat (“hat”), Danish hat (“hat”), Swedish hatt (“hat”), Icelandic hattur (“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.

noun

1. 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.
   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. (figurative) A particular role or capacity that a person might fill.
   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, page 121
3. (figurative) Any receptacle from which numbers/names are pulled out in a lottery.
   1. (figurative, by extension) The lottery or draw itself.
      We're both in the hat: let's hope we come up against each other.
4. (video games) A hat switch.
   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
5. (typography, nonstandard, rare) The háček symbol.
   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
6. (programming, informal) The caret symbol ^.
7. (Internet slang) User rights on a website, such as the right to edit pages others cannot.
8. (Cambridge University slang, obsolete) A student who is also the son of a nobleman (and so allowed to wear a hat instead of a mortarboard).
   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

verb

1. (transitive) To place a hat on.
2. (transitive) 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. 2 December 1929, “Five New Hats”, in Time
3. (intransitive) To shop for hats.
   We might just go hatting this afternoon […] 1920, Katharine Metcalf Roof, The Great Demonstration, page 122

Etymology 2

verb

1. (Scotland, Northern England or obsolete) simple past of hit