page_title: Pussy
section_title: Cat and similar
hierarchical_section_title: Pussy / Uses / Cat and similar
caption_attribution_description: English: A cat and a rabbit cuddling Français&#160;: Un chat et un lapin se faisant un câlin
context_page_description: Pussy is a noun, an adjective, and in rare uses a verb in the English language. It has several meanings, including use as slang, as euphemism, and as vulgarity. Common meanings of the noun include "cat", as well as "coward or weakling", and "the human vulva or vagina", or as a synecdoche, "sexual intercourse with a woman". Because of its multiple senses including both innocent and vulgar connotations, "pussy" is often the subject of double entendre.
  The etymology of the word is not entirely clear. Several different senses of the word have different histories or origins.
context_section_description: Both in English and in German puss was used as a "call-name" for cats, but in English pussy was used as a synonym for the word cat in other uses as well. In addition to cats, the word was also used for rabbits and hares. In the 19th century,  the meaning was extended to anything soft and furry. Pussy willow, for example, is a name applied to various species in the genus Salix with furry catkins. In thieves' cant the word pussy means a "fur coat".
  The Oxford English Dictionary gives as the first meaning of the noun: "Chiefly colloq[uial]. A girl or woman exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat, esp[ecially] sweetness or amiability. Freq[uently] used as a pet name or as a term of endearment." The examples it cites from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries are not sexual. Another example, not cited by the OED, is one of the main characters of E. Nesbit's Five Children and It - Jane, nicknamed Pussy by her siblings.
  The verb pussyfoot, meaning to walk softly or to speak in an evasive or cautious manner, may come from the adjective pussy-footed "having a cat-like foot", or directly from the noun pussyfoot. This word, first attested in the late nineteenth century, is related to both the "cat" and the "woman" meanings of pussy.
caption: The word pussy refers to cats as well as other animals, including rabbits and hares.
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