A good-humored sort of half oath, as Moor calls it in his Suffolk Words. It is probably an abbreviation of od rot, and originally God rot. The expression is only heard at the South.
"A wolf! a wolf!" they cry, "have at him!
If he escape us this time, 'drat him!"--Reynard the Fox, p. 69.
Your bag! says Pete, drat your infernal picter, who told you to hang up a bag, for white folks to get into?--Maj. Jones's Courtship, p. 194.
'Drot it! what do boys have daddies for, any how? 'Taint for nothin' but jest to beat 'em and work 'em.--Simon Suggs.