# cat

Pronunciation: say "KAT" /kæt/

## Noun

1. A carnivorous, four-legged, generally furry domesticated feline (Felis catus), commonly kept as a house pet.
   - Simple: A small furry animal with whiskers and a tail, often kept as a pet.
   - _The cat curled up on the warm radiator and fell asleep._
   - _House cats often hunt small birds and mice even when well fed._
2. Any member of the cat family (Felidae), especially a wild one such as a lion, tiger, leopard or lynx.
   - Simple: Any animal in the cat family, especially a wild one like a lion or tiger.
   - _A cat this size could bring down a full-grown antelope._
   - _The reserve protects several big cats whose numbers are falling fast._
3. Abbreviation of category. — Abbreviation of category.
   - Simple: Abbreviation of category. Used as a short label for a group or class of things.
   - _The installer used cat 6 cable, since the older cat 5 kind could slow down the new network._
   - _Forecasters warned that the storm could reach cat 5 strength by Friday._
4. Abbreviation of computed axial tomography. — Abbreviation of computed axial tomography; often used attributively, as in “CAT scan” or “CT scan”.
   - Simple: Abbreviation of computed axial tomography, a medical scan that makes detailed pictures of the inside of the body.
   - _The radiologist compared the CAT images taken six months apart._
   - _They scheduled a CAT scan to locate the source of the bleeding._
6. Chiefly with a descriptive word, an animal outside the family Felidae that somewhat resembles a domestic cat.
   - Simple: An animal that is not really in the cat family but looks a bit like a house cat.
   - _The native cat of Australia is actually a small marsupial, not a feline._
   - _Trappers once prized the ring-tailed cat for its soft pelt._
7. The flesh of the domestic cat when eaten as food.
   - Simple: The meat of a cat, eaten as food.
   - _Travelers wrote of regions where cat appeared on the table in times of famine._
   - _A few old recipes treated cat much like rabbit, stewed slowly with herbs._
8. A vehicle that runs on caterpillar tracks, especially a bulldozer or other earth-moving machine (from the maker Caterpillar) or a snowcat.
   - Simple: A big machine or vehicle that moves on tracks instead of wheels, such as a bulldozer or snowcat.
   - _The patrol took a cat over the glacier because no wheeled truck could grip the ice._
   - _A line of cats laid fresh corduroy across the ski runs before dawn._
9. Abbreviation of catalytic converter. — Abbreviation of catalytic converter.
   - Simple: Abbreviation of catalytic converter, a car part that cleans harmful gases from the engine's exhaust.
   - _The mechanic replaced the rusted cat during the emissions repair._
   - _A clogged cat will choke the engine and sap its power._
10. Ellipsis of cat-o'-nine-tails. — Ellipsis of cat-o'-nine-tails.
   - Simple: Short form of cat-o'-nine-tails. It means a whip with many cords, once used to punish sailors.
   - _The captain ordered the cat brought up for the morning's punishment._
   - _Sailors dreaded the cat more than any other discipline aboard ship._
11. Abbreviation of catamaran. — Abbreviation of catamaran.
   - Simple: Abbreviation of catamaran, a boat with two hulls joined side by side.
   - _The cat heeled gently as the crew trimmed both sails._
   - _A light cat will plane across flat water far faster than a monohull._
12. Abbreviation of catfish. — Abbreviation of catfish.
   - Simple: Short for catfish. Used mainly by people who fish.
   - _He cleaned the cat right there on the riverbank before heading home._
   - _That channel cat put up a real fight before we landed it._
13. Someone who plays jazz, or someone with a keen enthusiasm for it. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A jazz musician, or someone who loves jazz music.
   - _Every cat in the band could trade solos without missing a beat._
   - _The hippest cats packed the smoky basement to hear the new trio._
14. A person, typically a woman, who behaves with malice or anger toward others.
   - Simple: A mean or spiteful person, especially a woman.
   - _Everyone in the office knew she could be a cat whenever someone else got the credit._
   - _"Don't mind my aunt," he whispered. "She's an old cat who will criticize your cooking behind your back."_
15. A Unix program and command that reads one or more files and sends their contents to the standard output.
   - Simple: A Unix command that reads files and sends their contents to the screen, another program, or a file.
   - _Type cat followed by a filename to dump its text to the screen._
   - _He piped the output of cat into grep to search the log._
19. A street name for methcathinone, a stimulant drug. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A street name for the illegal drug methcathinone.
   - _Investigators traced a homemade batch of cat back to a basement lab._
   - _She admitted to buying cat from the same supplier for months._
20. A vulgar slang term for the vulva or vagina. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A rude slang word for a woman's private parts.
   - _The track's hook was just one more boast about getting some cat._
   - _He kept dropping crude lines about cat until the room went quiet._

## Verb

16. In Unix-like systems, to process one or more files with the cat command.
   - Simple: To use the 'cat' command on one or more computer files.
   - _If you cat the README, you'll find the install steps near the top._
   - _He catted both error logs and piped the output into grep._
17. To gossip in a spiteful, catty manner.
   - Simple: To gossip about others in a mean, unkind way.
18. To flog someone with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
   - Simple: To beat someone with a whip called a cat-o'-nine-tails.
   - _The officer threatened to cat any man caught stealing rations._
   - _They catted the thief until his back was raw._

## Adjective

21. Extremely bad; disastrous or catastrophic. *(colloquial, Ireland)*
   - Simple: So bad that it is a complete disaster.
   - _Traffic on the way home was cat after the road closed._
   - _She said the film was cat and walked out halfway through._

## Noun

5. Any person, especially a man, spoken of casually as a guy or fellow. *(dated)*
   - Simple: A person, especially a man, spoken of casually as a guy or fellow.
   - _Some cool cat at the bar offered to buy the whole band a round._
   - _A couple of cats from the old neighborhood showed up at the reunion._
22. In the game of tipcat, the pointed wooden piece that the players hit. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A short, pointed piece of wood that players hit in the game of tipcat.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Abbreviation of catapult.
- (noun) An itinerant worker who moves from place to place in search of jobs.
- (verb) To raise an anchor by its ring until it hangs from the cathead.
- (noun) On a ship, a heavy tackle for hauling the anchor up to the cathead.
- (noun) A wheeled shelter used in the Middle Ages to protect attackers as they approached the defenses of a besieged stronghold.
- (noun) A double tripod for holding a plate or similar object, with six feet, three of which rest on the ground in any position it is placed.
- (noun) A woman who sells sex for money.
- (noun) Trap ball, an old bat-and-ball game, or the hinged wooden trap used to launch the ball in it.
- (noun) A strong cargo-carrying sailing ship of former times, a sense that survives today only in catboat.
- (verb) To throw up the contents of the stomach.
- (verb) To roam about at night, like a cat on the prowl.
- (verb) To flood a person or system that is not ready for it with a mass of data, usually with no plan to examine it closely.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2, 5–7, 10, 13–14, 17–18, 20, 22** — From Middle English cat, from Old English catt (male) and catte (female), from Proto-Germanic *kattuz, generally thought to derive from Late Latin cattus ("domestic cat") and earlier Latin catta, possibly ultimately from an Afroasiatic language. Every proposed source has presented problems, however, and it may be a wanderword; some suggest an even earlier borrowing into Germanic, possibly from Uralic.
**Meanings 15–16** — From catenate, a variant of concatenate, after the program's function of concatenating (joining) files together; compare concat.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cat (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).