cat

See also Cat, CAT, cât, .cat, and Appendix:ISO 639-3 language codes

English

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Wikipedia

A domestic cat (1)

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /kæt/, [kʰæt]
  • (US) IPA: /kæt/, [kʰæʔ(t̚)]
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Audio (US-Inland North)
    		(file)
  • Rhymes: -æt

Etymology 1

From Middle English cat, catte, from Old English catt (“male cat”) and catte (“female cat”), from Late Latin cattus (“domestic cat”), from Latin catta (c.75 B.C., Martial)[1], from Afro-Asiatic (compare Nubian kadís, Berber kaddîska 'wildcat'), from Late Egyptian čaute,[2] feminine of čaus 'jungle cat, African wildcat', from earlier Egyptian tešau 'female cat'. Cognate with Scots cat (“cat”), Welsh cath (“cat”), West Frisian kat (“cat”), North Frisian kåt (“cat”), Dutch kat (“cat”), Low German Katt, Katte (“cat”), German Katze (“cat”), Danish kat (“cat”), Swedish katt (“cat”), Icelandic köttur (“cat”).

Noun

cat (plural cats)

  1. A domesticated subspecies, Felis silvestris catus, of feline animal, commonly kept as a house pet. [from 8th c.]
  2. Any similar animal of the family Felidae, which includes lions, tigers, bobcats, etc.
  3. A catfish.
    • 1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, chapter 2:
      She missed the fish diet of her own country, and twice every summer she sent the boys to the river, twenty miles to the southward, to fish for channel cat.
  4. (offensive) A spiteful or angry woman. [from earlier 13th c.]
  5. An enthusiast or player of jazz.
  6. (slang) A person (usually male).
  7. (nautical) A strong tackle used to hoist an anchor to the cathead of a ship.
  8. (chiefly nautical) Short form of cat-o'-nine-tails.
    • 1839, testimony by Henry Pinckney, recorded in the Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York (Assembly No. 335), page 44:
      […] he whipped a black man for disobedience of his orders fifty lashes; and again whipped him with a cat, which he wound with wire, about the same number of stripes; […] he used this cat on one other man, and then destroyed the cat wound with wire.
  9. (slang) Any of a variety of earth-moving machines. (from their manufacturer Caterpillar Inc.)
  10. (archaic) A sturdy merchant sailing vessel (now only in "catboat").
  11. (archaic, uncountable) The game of "trap and ball" (also called "cat and dog").
  12. (archaic, uncountable) The trap of the game of "trap and ball".
  13. (slang) Prostitute. [from at least early 15th c.]
  14. (slang, vulgar, African American Vernacular) A vagina; female external genitalia
    • 1969, Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life (Holloway House Publishing):
      "What the hell, so this broad's got a prematurely-gray cat."
    • 2005, Carolyn Chambers Sanders, Sins & Secrets (Hachette Digital):
      As she came up, she tried to put her cat in his face for some licking.
    • 2007, Franklin White, Money for Good (Simon and Schuster), page 64:
      I had a notion to walk over to her, rip her apron off, sling her housecoat open and put my finger inside her cat to see if she was wet or freshly fucked because the dream I had earlier was beginning to really annoy me.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Terms derived from cat in the above senses
Translations
domestic species
member of the suborder (or superfamily) Feliformia (Feloidea), "cat-like" carnivorans
member of the family Felidae
member of the subfamily Felinae
member of the subfamily Pantherinae
member of the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae
catfish — see catfish
spiteful woman — see bitch
jazz enthusiast
guy, fellow
strong tackle used to hoist an anchor to the cathead of a ship
cat-o'-nine-tails — see cat-o'-nine-tails
catboat — see catboat
game of "trap and ball" (or "cat and dog")
the trap in the game of "trap and ball"
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked
See also

Verb

cat (third-person singular simple present cats, present participle catting, simple past and past participle catted)

  1. (nautical) To hoist (the anchor) by its ring so that it hangs at the cathead.
  2. (nautical) To flog with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
  3. (slang) To vomit something.
Translations
raise anchor to cathead
flog
vomit

Etymology 2

Abbreviation of catamaran.

Noun

cat (plural cats)

  1. A catamaran.

Etymology 3

Abbreviation of catenate.

Noun

cat (plural cats)

  1. (computing) A ‘catenate’ program and command in Unix that reads one or more files and directs their content to an output device.

Verb

cat (third-person singular simple present cats, present participle catting, simple past and past participle catted)

  1. (transitive, computing) To apply the cat command to (one or more files).
  2. (computing slang) To dump large amounts of data on (an unprepared target) usually with no intention of browsing it carefully.

Etymology 4

Possibly a shortened form of catastrophic.

Adjective

cat (not comparable)

  1. (Ireland, informal) terrible, disastrous.
    The weather was cat, so they returned home early.
Usage notes

This usage is common in speech but rarely appears in writing.

Etymology 5

Shortened from methcathinone.

Noun

cat (uncountable)

  1. A street name of the drug methcathinone.

Etymology 6

Shortened from catapult.

Noun

cat (plural cats)

  1. (military, naval) A catapult.
    a carrier's bow cats

References

  1. ^ Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. "cat", [html], retrieved on 29 September 2009: [1].
  2. ^ Jean-Paul Savignac, Dictionnaire français-gaulois, s.v. "chat" (Paris: Errance, 2004), 82.

Anagrams

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Guernésiais

Etymology

From Late Latin cattus.

Noun

cat m (plural cats; feminine catte, plural cattes)

  1. cat
    • c. 1830, George Métivier, ‘Lamentations de Damaris’:
      Où'est donc qu'j'iron, mé et mes puches / Ma catte, et l'reste de l'écu?
    • 2006, Peggy Collenette, ‘D'la gâche de Guernési’, P'tites Lures Guernésiaises, Cromwell Press 2006, p. 20:
      Ils d'visirent pour enne haeure, mais la Louise était pas chagrinaïe au tour sa pâte, pasqué a savait que le cat était à gardaïr la pâte caoude. (They talked for an hour, but Louise was not worried about her dough, because she knew that the cat was keeping the dough warm.)
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Indonesian

Etymology

From Malay cat, from Min Nan 漆 (chhat), from Middle Chinese 漆 (tsit).

Noun

cat

  1. paint (substance)
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Irish

Cat

Etymology

From Old Irish catt, from Latin cattus.

Pronunciation

Noun

cat m (genitive cait, nominative plural cait)

  1. cat (domestic feline; member of the Felidae)

Declension

Declension of cat

First declension

Bare forms:

Case Singular Plural
Nominative cat cait
Vocative a chait a chata
Genitive cait cat
Dative cat cait

Forms with the definite article:

Case Singular Plural
Nominative an cat na cait
Genitive an chait na gcat
Dative leis an gcat

don chat

 leis na cait

Derived terms

Derived terms
  • cat mara
  • catsúil
  • catúil
  • fearchat

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
cat chat gcat
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

  • "cat" in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, Irish Texts Society, 1927, by Patrick S. Dinneen.
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Jèrriais

Etymology

From Late Latin cattus.

Pronunciation

Noun

cat m (plural cats; feminine catte, plural cattes)

  1. cat
  2. common dab

Derived terms

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Lojban

Rafsi

cat

  1. rafsi of cartu.
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Malay

Etymology

From Min Nan 漆 (chhat), from Middle Chinese 漆 (tsit).

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /t͡ʃat/
  • Rhymes: -t͡ʃat, -at

Noun

cat (Jawi spelling چت)

  1. paint (substance)
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Romanian

Etymology

Turkish kat.

Noun

cat n (plural cate)

  1. floor (storey)

Declension

declension of cat
singular plural
gender n indefinite articulation definite articulation indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative un cat catul niște cate catele
genitive/dative unui cat catului unor cate catelor
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Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish catt, from Latin cattus.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /kaʰt̪/

Noun

cat m (genitive and plural cait)

  1. cat (animal)

Derived terms

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Last modified on 21 May 2013, at 15:58