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The Germanic word is generally thought to be from Late Latincattus(“domestic cat”) (c. 350, Palladius), from Latincatta (c. 75 A.D., Martial),[1] 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,[2][3] and Greece and Italy by 2500 years ago[4]), especially after they became popular in Egypt.[2][3] However, every proposed source word has presented problems. Adolphe Pictet[5] and many subsequent sources refer to Barabra (Nubian) (kaddîska) and "Nouba" (Nobiin) ⲕⲁⲇⲓ̄ⲥ(kadīs, “kadīs”) as possible sources or cognates,[6] but M. Lionel Bender says the Nubian word is a loan from Arabicقِطَّة(qiṭṭa).[7] Jean-Paul Savignac suggests the Latin word is from an Egyptian precursor of Copticϣⲁⲩ(šau, “tomcat”) suffixed with feminine -t,[8] but John Huehnergard says "the source was clearly not Egyptian itself, where no analogous form is attested."[7]
It may be a Wanderwort.[9] 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 Samigađfe(“female stoat”) and Hungarianhölgy(“stoat; lady, bride”) from Proto-Uralic*käďwä(“female (of a fur animal)”).[10]
2011, Karl Kruszelnicki, Brain Food, →ISBN, page 53:
Mammals need two genes to make the taste receptor for sugar. Studies in various cats (tigers, cheetahs and domestic cats) showed that one of these genes has mutated and no longer works.
At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
1977, Peter Hathaway Capstick, Death in the Long Grass: A Big Game Hunter's Adventures in the African Bush, St. Martin's Press, page 44:
I grabbed it and ran over to the lion from behind, the cat still chewing thoughtfully on Silent's arm.
1985 January, George Laycock, “Our American Lion”, in Boys' Life, Boy Scouts of America, section 28:
If you should someday round a corner on the hiking trail and come face to face with a mountain lion, you would probably never forget the mighty cat.
2014, Dale Mayer, Rare Find. A Psychic Visions Novel, Valley Publishing:
She felt privileged to be here, living the experience inside the majestic cat [i.e. a tiger]; privileged to be part of their bond, even for only a few hours.
“[…]—Say, do you mind telling me if people around here really eat cats?” He felt a shiver in the pit of his stomach. “Do they eat cat?” said the little old man, profoundly shocked.
You do not eat cat simply for the thrill of eating cat. You eat cat because cats have a lively jingshen, or spirit, and thus by eating the animal you will improve your spirits.
1958, “Fever”, Eddie Cooley, Otis Blackwell, Peggy Lee (lyrics), performed by Peggy Lee:
Now you've listened to my story / Here's the point that I have made / Cats were born to give chicks fever / Be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade
1972, “Starman”, in The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, performed by David Bowie:
Didn't know what time it was the lights were low / I leaned back on my radio / Some cat was layin' down some rock'n'roll 'lotta soul, he said
1973 December, "Books Noted", discussing A Dialogue (by James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni), in Black World, Johnson Publishing Company, 77.
BALDWIN: That's what we were talking about before. And by the way, you did not have to tell me that you think your father is a groovy cat; I knew that.
What fags are true I know what Mack's might do I'm quite familiar with cats like you Provoke to get me give me a good reason to smoke me Try to break me but never wrote me)
I started showing up early for every team practice, and when all those other cats jetted to hit the showers, I put in even more work on the court, eliminating my weaknesses, practicing drills and perfecting my outside shot.
2006, “Sick of it all”, in Masta Ace (lyrics), Pariah:
I am sick of rappers claiming they hot when they really not I am sick of rappers bragging about shit they ain’t really got These cats stay rapping about cars they don’t own I am sick of rappers bragging about models they don’t bone.[…] And I am sick of all these cats with no talent That never lived in the hood but yet their lyrics be so violent.
1999, Carl P. Eby, Hemingway's Fetishism. Psychoanalysis and the Mirror of Manhood, State University of New York Press, page 124:
"Tell me. Willie said there was a cat in love with you. That isn't true, is it?" "Yes. It's true," Hudson corrects her, letting her think that by "cat" he means prostitute.
(nautical) A strong tackle used to hoist an anchor to the cathead of a ship.
2009, Olof A. Eriksen, Constitution - All Sails Up and Flying, Outskirts Press, page 134:
Overhaul down & hook the cat, haul taut. Walk away the cat. When up, pass the cat head stopper. Hook the fish in & fish the anchor.
1839, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, testimony by Henry L. Pinckney (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.
(archaic) A sturdy merchant sailing vessel (now only in "catboat").
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.
A doubletripod (for holding a plate, etc.) with six feet, of which three rest on the ground, in whatever position it is placed.
"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.
2010, Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land, page 18:
This was going to be my first try at catting out. I went looking for somebody to cat with me.
2012, Valerie Hansen, Wages of Sin:
My own dear wife could have tended to his needs if she hadn't been out catting.
Men from young to middleaged, with matt faces, vivacious and brightly dressed, catted together in gay groups.
1996, Alistair Boyle, The Unlucky Seven:
They smiled, touched, rolled their eyes and raised their eyebrows, as they relived the audition and catted about some of their competition.
2016, Melanie Benjamin, The Swans of Fifth Avenue, page 293:
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.
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.
1916, M. Shults, “Fishing for Yellow Cat in the Brazos”, in Field and Stream, vol. 21, 478:
Fishing for cat is probably, up to a certain stage, the least exciting of all similar sports.
↑ 3.03.1Claudio Ottoni, Wim Van Neer, Eva-Maria Geigl, et al, The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world, in Nature: Ecology & Evolution, volume 1 (19 June 2017) (doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0139); summarized e.g. by PLOS
^ Dennis C. Turner, Patrick Bateson, The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour (→ISBN), page 93
^ Pictet, Adolphe (1859) Les origines indo-européennes, ou Les Aryas primitifs: essai de paléontologie linguistique, volume I, Paris: J. Cherbuliez, page 381
^ Otto Keller, Die antike Tierwelt, vol. 1: Säugetiere (Leipzig, 1909), 75; Walther von Wartburg, ed. Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, vol. 2 (Basel: R. G. Zbinden, 1922–1967), 520.
↑ 7.07.1John Huehnergard, “Qitta: Arabic Cats”, in Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms, ed. Beatrice Gruendler (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 407–18.