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• n  a series of short sharp taps (as made by strokes on a drum or knocks on a door)

• Today, the sound of clapping has been drowned by the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• Sensitive to the electromagnetic gamma rays which radium continually ejects, it emits a shrill rat-a-tat-tat of clicks whenever it approaches a radium hideout.
• Another line referred to bombing innocent people and there was also a rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire.

• rat-a-tat
• rat-tat

News & Articles

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• The Bad Boys (And Girls) of Brazil: How Rio Came to Rule Ultimate Fighting
  GlobalPost's Simeon Tegel visits the Brazilian gym that's a training ground for some of the world's toughest cage fighters. by Simeon Tegel, GlobalPost The roundhouse kicks reverberate around the gym like artillery shells exploding down the block. For 30 minutes, the fighter glides across the ring, flicking out rat-a-tat-tat combinations of seamless jabs, straight rights and those brutal kicks ...
  Aug. 19, 2013 - Boise Weekly

Quotes

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• Dennis Miller in South Bend Tribune (subscription)
  I wanted to be friendly with these people,Miller says. "So that's the vibe I'm going for. It doesn't have to be rat-a-tat-tat. It doesn't have to be killer funny. But I like to put the little zingers in and to be nice."