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lab rat. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
lab rat, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Noun
lab rat (plural lab rats)
- (idiomatic) A student or employee who spends a great deal of time working in a laboratory.
2013 April 8, Denise Grady, “Profiles in Science: Charting Her Own Course”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 April 2015:As a graduate student, she loved being a “lab rat,” Dr. Blackburn said, adding, “I was just really focused on the science, the science, the science.”
- (idiomatic) A person or group used as the subject of an experiment or test, especially unwillingly or unwittingly.
2010, BioWare, quoting Toombs, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: What the hell?:Tests were done on me that you can't even imagine. For years. Cerberus did them. They tortured me. They used me as a damn lab rat. And now you're teaming up with them like they're any other merc band?
2012 May 1, Joanna Kakissis, “Greece's Former Prime Minister Assesses the State of His Nation”, in Time, retrieved 20 April 2015:Looking back at the unprecedented meddling of European powers in his country's politics amid the Euro crisis — a series of events that led to his fall as well as Greece becoming the first country in the zone to be forced to accept painful austerities in exchange for bailout loans — Papandreou told TIME, "I think it couldn't have been avoided. We were a lab rat, an experiment."
2012 September 13, “TV Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’”, in Washington Post, retrieved 20 April 2015:This time, Vincent . . . became an unwitting lab rat for a vaccine that turned soldiers into hyperaggressive killing machines.
Synonyms
- (someone used as the subject of an experiment): guinea pig
Translations
person or group used as the subject of an experiment or test