cat
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: kăt
ipa: /kæt/
ipa: [kʰæt]
ipa: [kʰæʔ]
text: -
homophone: Cat
homophone: Kat
homophone: khat
homophone: qat
rhymes: -æt
Forms: form: cats
form: catting
form: catted
form: catted
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). Ibn Duraid dismissed Arabic قِطَّة (qiṭṭa) as non-Arabic in origin, whereas the more "proper" term in Arabic is the now-rare Arabic سِنَّوْر (sinnawr). 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).
Senses: examples: text: The anchors were catted at the bows of the yacht […]
ref: 1922, Francis Lynde, Pirates’ Hope, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 226:
topics: nautical
transport
synonyms: cathead#Verb
glosses: To hoist (an anchor) by its ring so that it hangs at the cathead.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To flog with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
examples: text: ‘He's going to cat, Maxim,’ said the Pussum warningly. The suave young Russian rose and took Halliday by the arm, leading him away.
ref: 1921, DH Lawrence, Women in Love, Vintage, published 2008, page 65:
glosses: To vomit.
examples: text: "He doesn't realize that I know," Lord Callan said, "but it's been pretty obvious that most of his catting about London's darker alleys has been a search for his origins.
ref: 1998, Mary Spencer, Lady’s Wager, page 324:
text: This was going to be my first try at catting out. I went looking for somebody to cat with me.
ref: 2010, Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land, page 18:
text: My own dear wife could have tended to his needs if she hadn't been out catting.
ref: 2012, Valerie Hansen, Wages of Sin:
glosses: To go wandering at night.
examples: text: Men from young to middleaged, with matt faces, vivacious and brightly dressed, catted together in gay groups.
ref: 1932, Hugh Brooke, Man Made Angry, page 134:
text: They smiled, touched, rolled their eyes and raised their eyebrows, as they relived the audition and catted about some of their competition.
ref: 1996, Alistair Boyle, The Unlucky Seven:
text: In the story, Lady Ina gossiped and catted about a parade of the rich and famous—Jackie Kennedy looking like an exaggerated version of herself, Princess Margaret so boring she made people fall asleep, Gloria Vanderbilt so ditzy she didn't recognize her first husband.
ref: 2016, Melanie Benjamin, The Swans of Fifth Avenue, page 293:
glosses: To gossip in a catty manner.
Related terms: feline
kitten
kitty
meow
miaow
mog
moggie
moggy
nine lives
purr
Schrödinger’s cat
tabby