ratite

Other forms of ratite

plural

ratites·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about ratite

What does ratite mean?

ratite means "flightless birds having flat breastbones lacking a keel for attachment of flight muscles: ostriches; cassowaries; emus; moas; rheas; kiwis; elephant birds".

How many syllables are in ratite?

ratite has 2 syllables: ra-tite. The stress falls on "ra".

What is another word for ratite?

Close synonyms include ratite bird, flightless bird. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of ratite?

The recorded antonyms are carinate.

Is ratite a common word?

ratite is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.