Definition of CAT

cat

Plural: cats

Noun

  • feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and no ability to roar: domestic cats; wildcats
  • an informal term for a youth or man
  • a spiteful woman gossip
    • "what a cat she is!"
  • the leaves of the shrub Catha edulis which are chewed like tobacco or used to make tea; has the effect of a euphoric stimulant
  • a whip with nine knotted cords
    • "British sailors feared the cat"
  • a large tracked vehicle that is propelled by two endless metal belts; frequently used for moving earth in construction and farm work
  • any of several large cats typically able to roar and living in the wild
  • a method of examining body organs by scanning them with X rays and using a computer to construct a series of cross-sectional scans along a single axis
  • Terms relating to animals.
  • An animal of the family Felidae.
  • Terms relating to animals.
  • An animal of the family Felidae.
  • A carnivorous, four-legged, generally furry domesticated species (Felis catus) of feline animal, commonly kept as a house pet.
  • Terms relating to animals.
  • An animal of the family Felidae.
  • A carnivorous, four-legged, generally furry domesticated species (Felis catus) of feline animal, commonly kept as a house pet.
  • The flesh of this animal eaten as food.
  • Terms relating to animals.
  • An animal of the family Felidae.
  • Any similar, chiefly non-domesticated, animal of the family Felidae, which includes bobcats, caracals, cheetahs, cougars, leopards, lions, lynxes, tigers, and other such species.
  • Terms relating to animals.
  • Chiefly with a descriptive word: an animal not of the family Felidae which (somewhat) resembles a domestic feline.
  • Terms relating to people.
  • An angry or spiteful person, especially a woman.
  • Terms relating to people.
  • An ordinary person, especially a man; a fellow, a guy.
  • Terms relating to people.
  • Synonym of itinerant worker.
  • Terms relating to people.
  • A jazz musician; also, an enthusiast of jazz music.
  • Terms relating to people.
  • Synonym of prostitute.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • A double tripod for holding a plate, etc., with six feet, of which three rest on the ground in whatever position it is placed.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • The game of trap ball; also (countable), the trap in that game.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • The pointed piece of wood that is struck in the game of tipcat.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • A strong tackle used to hoist an anchor to the cathead of a ship.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • Ellipsis of cat-o'-nine-tails.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • Now only in catboat: a sturdy merchant sailing vessel.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • A wheeled shelter, used in the Middle Ages to protect assailants approaching besieged enemy defences; a cathouse.
  • Terms relating to things.
  • A vagina or vulva.
  • A program and command in Unix that reads one or more files and directs their content to the standard output.
  • A street name of the drug methcathinone.
  • Abbreviation of catapult.
  • Abbreviation of catalytic converter.
  • Abbreviation of catamaran.
  • Abbreviation of category.
  • Abbreviation of catfish.
  • Abbreviation of caterpillar.
  • Any of a variety of earth-moving machines. (from their manufacturer Caterpillar Inc.)
  • Abbreviation of caterpillar.
  • A ground vehicle which uses caterpillar tracks, especially tractors, trucks, minibuses, and snow groomers.
  • Abbreviation of computed axial tomography; often used attributively, as in “CAT scan” or “CT scan”.

Verb

Verb Forms: catted, catting, cats

  • To hoist an anchor to a ship's cathead.
  • beat with a cat-o'-nine-tails
  • eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth
  • To hoist (an anchor) by its ring so that it hangs at the cathead.
  • To flog with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
  • To vomit.
  • To go wandering at night.
  • To gossip in a catty manner.
  • To apply the cat command to (one or more files).
  • To dump large amounts of data on (an unprepared target), usually with no intention of browsing it carefully.

Adj

  • Catastrophic; terrible, disastrous.

Examples

  • a carrier's bow cats
  • a jazz cat
  • civet cat    polecat
  • He tried to CAT his valuable ’Q’ tile into a winning position.
  • The weather was cat, so they returned home early.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English cat, catte, from Old English catt (“male cat”), catte (“female cat”), from Proto-West Germanic *kattu, from Proto-Germanic *kattuz, generally thought to be from Late Latin cattus (“domestic cat”) (c. 350, Palladius), from Latin catta (c. 75 A.D., Martial), from an Afroasiatic language.
This would roughly match how domestic cats themselves spread, as genetic studies suggest they began to spread out of the Near East / Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic (being in Cyprus by 9500 years ago, and Greece and Italy by 2500 years ago), especially after they became popular in Egypt. However, every proposed source word has presented problems. Adolphe Pictet and many subsequent sources refer to Barabra (Nubian) [script needed] (kaddîska) and "Nouba" (Nobiin) ⲕⲁⲇⲓ̄ⲥ (kadīs, “kadīs”) as possible sources or cognates, but M. Lionel Bender says the Nubian word is a loan from Arabic قِطَّة (qiṭṭa). Jean-Paul Savignac suggests the Latin word is from an Egyptian precursor of Coptic ϣⲁⲩ (šau, “tomcat”) suffixed with feminine -t, but John Huehnergard says "the source … was clearly not Egyptian itself, where no analogous form is attested."
It may be a wanderword. Kroonen says the word must have existed in Germanic from a very early date, as it shows morphological alternations, and suggests that it might have been borrowed from Uralic, compare Northern Sami gađfe (“female stoat”) and Hungarian hölgy (“stoat; lady, bride”) from Proto-Uralic *käďwä (“female (of a fur animal)”).
Cognates
Related to Scots cat, West Frisian kat, North Frisian kåt and kaat, Dutch kat, Danish kat, Norwegian katt, Swedish katt, German Low German Katt and Katte, German Katze, Alemannic German Chatz, Icelandic köttur, Afrikaans kat, Latin cattus, French chat, Norman cat, Occitan cat, Portuguese gato, Spanish gato, Aromanian cãtush, Scottish Gaelic cat, Irish cat, Breton kazh, Welsh cath, Cornish kath, as well as Ancient Greek κάττα (kátta), Greek γάτα (gáta), Turkish kedi, and from the same ultimate source Russian кот (kot), Ukrainian кіт (kit), Belarusian кот (kot), Polish kot, Kashubian kòt, Lithuanian katė, and more distantly Armenian կատու (katu), Basque katu, Arabic قِطَّة (qiṭṭa) alongside dialectal Maghrebi Arabic قَطُّوس (qaṭṭūs) (from Berber, probably from Latin).

Synonyms

African tea, Arabian tea, barf, be sick, big cat, bozo, cast, cat-o'-nine-tails, Caterpillar, chuck, computed axial tomography, computed tomography, computerized axial tomography, computerized tomography, CT, disgorge, guy, hombre, honk, kat, khat, puke, purge, qat, quat, regorge, regurgitate, retch, sick, spew, spue, throw up, true cat, upchuck, vomit, vomit up, Welsh cat, baudrons, bitch, bloke, boy, bro, broski, bruh, cat, cat meat, catflesh, cathead#Verb, chap, chappy, chield, cove, covey, dawg, dog [⇒ thesaurus] (slang), domestic cat, dude, felid, feline, fella, fellow, gadgie, gate, geezer, gink, gloak, gome, grimalkin, gutter rabbit, health, hepcat, homeboy, homey, housecat, itinerant worker, joe, kibty, kitten, kitter, kitty, kitty witty, kitty-cat, lede, malkin, mog, moggy, mouser, nigga, ninja, omi, panther[Panthera#Translingual|Panthera]]>, pantherine[Pantherinae#Translingual|Pantherinae]]>, pillicock, prostitute, punk, puss, pussy, pussy-cat, roof rabbit, rooster, seg, shalk, tortoise, wallah, wer, were, wye

Antonyms

keep down

Scrabble Score: 5

cat: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
cat: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
cat: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 6

cat: valid Words With Friends Word