cat \cat\ ka^t, n. as. cat; akin to d.  dan. kat, sw.
   katt, icel. k"ottr, g. katze, kater, ir. cat, w. cath,
   armor. kaz, ll. catus, bisc. catua, ngr. ga`ta, ga`tos, russ.
    pol. kot, turk. kedi, ar. qitt; of unknown origin. cf.
   kitten.
   1. zool. any animal belonging to the natural family
      felidae, and in particular to the various species of the
      genera felis, panthera, and lynx. the domestic cat
      is felis domestica. the european wild cat felis
      catus is much larger than the domestic cat. in the
      united states the name wild cat is commonly applied to
      the bay lynx lynx rufus. the larger felines, such as
      the lion, tiger, leopard, and cougar, are often referred
      to as cats, and sometimes as big cats. see wild cat, and
      tiger cat.
      1913 webster +pjc

   note: the domestic cat includes many varieties named from
         their place of origin or from some peculiarity; as, the
         angora cat; the maltese cat; the manx cat; the
         siamese cat.
         1913 webster

               laying aside their often rancorous debate over
               how best to preserve the florida panther, state
               and federal wildlife officials,
               environmentalists, and independent scientists
               endorsed the proposal, and in 1995 the eight cats
               female texas cougars were brought from texas
               and released. . . .
               uprooted from the arid hills of west texas, three
               of the imports have died, but the remaining five
               adapted to swamp life and have each given birth
               to at least one litter of kittens. --mark derr
                                                  n. y. times,
                                                  nov. 2, 1999,
                                                  science times
                                                  p. f2.
         pjc

   note: the word cat is also used to designate other animals,
         from some fancied resemblance; as, civet cat, fisher
         cat, catbird, catfish shark, sea cat.
         1913 webster

   2. naut.
      a a strong vessel with a narrow stern, projecting
          quarters, and deep waist. it is employed in the coal
          and timber trade.
      b a strong tackle used to draw an anchor up to the
          cathead of a ship. --totten.
          1913 webster

   3. a double tripod for holding a plate, etc., having six
      feet, of which three rest on the ground, in whatever
      position it is placed.
      1913 webster

   4. an old game; specifically:
      a the game of tipcat and the implement with which it is
          played. see tipcat.
      b a game of ball, called, according to the number of
          batters, one old cat, two old cat, etc.
          1913 webster

   5. same as cat o' nine tails; as, british sailors feared
      the cat.
      1913 webster + wordnet 1.5

   6. a catamaran.
      pjc

   angora cat, blind cat, see under angora, blind.

   black cat the fisher. see under black.

   cat and dog, like a cat and dog; quarrelsome; inharmonious.
      "i am sure we have lived a cat and dog life of it."
      --coleridge.

   cat block naut., a heavy iron-strapped block with a large
      hook, part of the tackle used in drawing an anchor up to
      the cathead.

   cat hook naut., a strong hook attached to a cat block.

   cat nap, a very short sleep. colloq.

   cat o' nine tails, an instrument of punishment consisting
      of nine pieces of knotted line or cord fastened to a
      handle; -- formerly used to flog offenders on the bare
      back.

   cat's cradle, game played, esp. by children, with a string
      looped on the fingers so, as to resemble small cradle. the
      string is transferred from the fingers of one to those of
      another, at each transfer with a change of form. see
      cratch, cratch cradle.

   to bell the cat, to perform a very dangerous or very
      difficult task; -- taken metaphorically from a fable about
      a mouse who proposes to put a bell on a cat, so as to be
      able to hear the cat coming.

   to let the cat out of the bag, to tell a secret, carelessly
      or willfully. colloq.

   bush cat, the serval. see serval.
      1913 webster
see also:
kitten felidae felis panthera lynx felis domestica 
felis catus wild cat lynx rufus wild cat tiger cat 
angora cat maltese cat manx cat siamese cat florida panther 
tipcat cat o' nine tails catamaran blind cat angora 
blind black cat black cat and dog cat block 
cat hook cat nap cat o' nine tails cat's cradle cratch 
cratch cradle to bell the cat to let the cat out of the bag bush cat serval 

cat \cat\, v. t. imp.  p. p. catted; p. pr.  vb. n.
   catting. naut.
   to bring to the cathead; as, to cat an anchor. see anchor.
   --totten.
   1913 webster
see also:
catted catting anchor 

cat o' nine tails \cat" o' nine" tails`\, cat-o'-nine-tails
\cat"-o'-nine"-tails`\n.
   1. a whip used as an instrument of punishment consisting of
      nine pieces of knotted line or cord fastened to a handle;
      -- formerly used to flog offenders on the bare back; --
      called also the cat. it was used in the british navy to
      maintain discipline on board sailing ships.

   syn: cat.
        wordnet 1.5 +pjc catopter
see also:
cat 

cat
     n 1: feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and being unable
          to roar; domestic cats; wildcats syn: true cat
     2: an informal term for a youth or man; "a nice guy"; "the
        guy's only doing it for some doll" syn: guy, hombre,
        bozo
     3: a spiteful woman gossip; "what a cat she is"
     4: the leaves of the shrub catha edulis which are chewed like
        tobacco or used to make tea; has the effect of a euphoric
        stimulant; "in yemen kat is used daily by 85 of adults"
        syn: kat, khat, qat, quat, arabian tea, african
        tea
     5: a whip with nine knotted cords; "british sailors feared the
        cat" syn: cat-o'-nine-tails
     6: a large vehicle that is driven by caterpillar tracks;
        frequently used for moving earth in construction and farm
        work syn: caterpillar
     7: any of several large cats typically able to roar and living
        in the wild syn: big cat
     8: a method of examining body organs by scanning them with x
        rays and using a computer to construct a series of
        cross-sectional scans along a single axis syn: computerized
        tomography, computed tomography, ct, computerized
        axial tomography, computed axial tomography
     v 1: beat with a cat-o'-nine-tails
     2: eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth; "after
        drinking too much, the students vomited"; "he purged
        continuously"; "the patient regurgitated the food we gave
        him last night" syn: vomit, vomit up, purge, cast,
         sick, be sick, disgorge, regorge, retch, puke,
         barf, spew, spue, chuck, upchuck, honk, regurgitate,
         throw up ant: keep down
     also: catting, catted
see also:
true cat guy hombre bozo kat khat 
qat quat arabian tea african tea cat-o'-nine-tails 
caterpillar big cat computerized tomography computed tomography ct 
computerized axial tomography computed axial tomography vomit vomit up purge 
cast sick be sick disgorge regorge 
retch puke barf spew spue 
chuck upchuck honk regurgitate throw up 
keep down catting catted 

128 moby thesaurus words for "cat":
   abyssinian cat, adamite, angora cat, argus, cheshire cat,
   chinchilla cat, himalayan cat, maltese cat, manx cat, persian cat,
   alley cat, barf, bastard, being, belt, bird, blacksnake, bloke,
   blue cat, blue devils, blues, body, boy, buck, bugger, bullwhack,
   bullwhip, calico cat, cascade, cast, chap, character, coon cat,
   cowhide, creature, crop, customer, dods, dorts, duck, dumps, eagle,
   earthling, feline, feller, fellow, ferret, flagellum, frumps, gee,
   gent, gentleman, gib, gib-cat, grimalkin, groundling, grumps, guy,
   hand, hawk, head, heave, homo, horsewhip, house cat, human,
   human being, individual, jasper, joker, kit, kitling, kitten,
   kitty, kitty-cat, knout, kurbash, lad, lash, life, living soul,
   lynx, man, mopes, mortal, mouser, mulligrubs, mumps, nose, one,
   party, person, personage, personality, pouts, puke, puss, pussy,
   pussycat, quirt, rawhide, razor strap, scourge, silver cat, single,
   sjambok, somebody, someone, soul, spew, strap, stud, sulks,
   sullens, tabby, tabby cat, tellurian, terran, thong, throw up,
   tiger cat, tom, tomcat, tortoise-shell cat, weasel, whip, whiplash,
   worldling

cat
     central alaska time -1000 tz
     
     

cat
     common authentication technology ietf, rfc 1511
     
     

cat
     computer aided technology fair
     
     

cat
     computer aided telephony
     
     

cat
     computer aided testing
     
     

cat from `catenate' via unix `cat1' vt. 1. techspeak to spew
   an entire file to the screen or some other output sink without pause
   syn. blast. 2. by extension, to dump large amounts of data at an
   unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it carefully. usage:
   considered silly. rare outside unix sites. see also dd, blt.

   among unix fans, `cat1' is considered an excellent example of
   user-interface design, because it delivers the file contents without
   such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and because it
   does not require the files to consist of lines of text, but works with
   any sort of data.

   among unix haters, `cat1' is considered the canonical example of
   _bad_ user-interface design, because of its woefully unobvious name. it
   is far more often used to blast a file to standard output than to
   concatenate two files. the name `cat' for the former operation is just
   as unintuitive as, say, lisp's cdr.

   of such oppositions are holy wars made.... see also uuoc.


see also:
unix blast dd blt canonical cdr 
holy wars uuoc 

cat
     
        common abstract tree language.  r. voeller  uwe schmidt, u
        kiel, germany 1983.  universal intermediate language, used by
        norsk data in their family of compilers.  "a multi-language
        compiler system with automatically generated codegenerators,
        u. schmidt et al, sigplan notices 196:202-2121 june 1984.
     
        jargon file
     
     
see also:
jargon file 

cat
     
         from "catenate" unix's command which copies one or
        more entire files to the screen or some other output sink
        without pause.
     
        see also dd, blt.
     
        among unix fans, cat is considered an excellent example of
        user-interface design, because it delivers the file contents
        without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files
        the pr command can be used to do this, and because it does
        not require the files to consist of lines of text, but works
        with any sort of data.
     
        among unix haters, cat is considered the canonical example
        of bad user-interface design, because of its woefully
        unobvious name.  it is far more often used to blast a file
        to standard output than to concatenate files.  the name "cat"
        for the former operation is just as unintuitive as, say,
        lisp's cdr.
     
        of such oppositions are holy wars made.
     
        1994-11-29
     
     
see also:
unix dd blt pr canonical blast 
cdr holy wars 

cat, n.  a soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be
kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

    this is a dog,
        this is a cat.
    this is a frog,
        this is a rat.
    run, dog, mew, cat.
    jump, frog, gnaw, rat.
                                                             elevenson