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Added 2 October 2026

cat

/ˈkæt/ symbol

In Latin: fēlēs, cattus, catta Wiktionary

symbol Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about cat at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Catalan.

noun

Terms relating to animals. A mammal of the family Felidae.
civet cat
A mammal of the family Felidae.
A carnivorous, four-legged, generally furry domesticated species (Felis catus) of feline animal, commonly kept as a house pet. .mw-parser-output .defdate{font-size:smaller}

verb

To hoist (an anchor) by its ring so that it hangs at the cathead.
To flog with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
To vomit.

noun

A program and command in Unix that reads one or more files and directs their content to the standard output.

Origin

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), possibly from an Afroasiatic language. Doublet of gato. A loan from Afro-Asiatic into European languages would roughly match how the animal itself spread, as genetic studies suggest domestic cats first began to spread out of the Near East / Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic, especially after they became popular and domesticated in Egypt 4000 years ago; they were found in Greece and Italy later, 2500 years ago.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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