What is "cat"

cat \cat\ (k[a^]t), n. [AS. cat; akin to D. & Dan. kat, Sw. katt, Icel. k["o]ttr, 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. (Zo["o]l.) 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.

   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.

   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).

   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.

2. (Naut.)

   1. A strong vessel with a narrow stern, projecting quarters, and deep waist. It is employed in the coal and timber trade.

   2. A strong tackle used to draw an anchor up to the cathead of a ship.
      --Totten.

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.

4. An old game; specifically:

   1. The game of tipcat and the implement with which it is played. See Tipcat.

   2. A game of ball, called, according to the number of batters, one old cat, two old cat, etc.

5. same as cat o' nine tails; as, British sailors feared the cat.

6. A catamaran.

   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.

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.

1975, medical acronym for computerized axial tomography or something like it. Related: CAT scan.

Old English catt (c.700), from West Germanic (c.400-450), from Proto-Germanic *kattuz (cognates: Old Frisian katte, Old Norse köttr, Dutch kat, Old High German kazza, German Katze), from Late Latin cattus.\n

\nThe near-universal European word now, it appeared in Europe as Latin catta (Martial, c.75 C.E.), Byzantine Greek katta (c.350) and was in general use on the continent by c.700, replacing Latin feles. Probably ultimately Afro-Asiatic (compare Nubian kadis, Berber kadiska, both meaning "cat"). Arabic qitt "tomcat" may be from the same source. Cats were domestic in Egypt from c.2000 B.C.E., but not a familiar household animal to classical Greeks and Romans. The nine lives have been proverbial since at least 1560s.\n

\nThe Late Latin word also is the source of Old Irish and Gaelic cat, Welsh kath, Breton kaz, Italian gatto, Spanish gato, French chat (12c.). Independent, but ultimately from the same source are words in the Slavic group: Old Church Slavonic kotuka, kotel'a, Bulgarian kotka, Russian koška, Polish kot, along with Lithuanian kate and non-Indo-European Finnish katti, which is from Lithuanian.\n

\nExtended to lions, tigers, etc. c.1600. As a term of contempt for a woman, from early 13c. Slang sense of "prostitute" is from at least c.1400. Slang sense of "fellow, guy," is from 1920, originally in U.S. Black English; narrower sense of "jazz enthusiast" is recorded from 1931.\n

\nCat's paw (1769, but cat's foot in the same sense, 1590s) refers to old folk tale in which the monkey tricks the cat into pawing chestnuts from a fire; the monkey gets the nuts, the cat gets a burnt paw. Cat bath "hurried or partial cleaning" is from 1953. Cat burglar is from 1907, so called for stealth. Cat-witted "small-minded, obstinate, and spiteful" (1670s) deserved to survive. For Cat's meow, cat's pajamas, see bee's knees.

acr. 1 Centre for Alternative Technology 2 Counter Assault Team 3 Computer-adaptive test 4 Common Admission Test 5 Civil Air Transport 6 Citizens Area Transit 7 Clear air turbulence 8 (context medicine English) computed axial tomography 9 Career Aptitude Test 10 Computer-assisted translation 11 Canadian Achievement Tests 12 Computer Aided Translation 13 Cambridge Antibody Technology 14 Credit Authorization Terminal 15 Citizenship Advancement Training 16 Computer Aided Transceiver 17 Cosmic Anisotropy Telescope 18 Coital Alignment Technique 19 conidial anastomosis tube 20 chloramphenicol acetyltransferase 21 crisis assessment team

1. v. 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]

3. [also: catting, catted]

1. n. 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]

9. [also: catting, catted]

The Cat is a fictional character in the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. He is played by Danny John-Jules. He is a descendant of Dave Lister's pregnant pet cat Frankenstein, whose descendants evolved into a humanoid form over three million years while Lister was in suspended animation. As a character he is vain and aloof, and loves to dress in extravagant clothing. He is simply referred to as "the Cat" in lieu of a real name.

Cat most commonly refers to the domestic cat, Felis catus, or Felis silvestris catus

Cat may also refer to:

Cat, in comics, may refer to:

• Tigra (aka Greer (Grant) Nelson), a Marvel Comics character whose original superhero identity was The Cat
• Patsy Walker, a Marvel Comics character who inherited The Cat costume, and taking the name of Hellcat
• Shen Kuei, a Marvel Comics character who also goes by the name Cat
• Emma Malone, a Marvel UK character who appeared in titles like Gene Dogs
• Cat (Exiles), an alternative version of Kitty Pryde who appeared in the Exiles
• Cat, a character from Cat & Mouse by Aircel Comics
• Cat Grant, a DC Comics character
• An unnamed, red-headed male cat burglar whom Spider-Man has encountered twice (the first time in The Amazing Spider-Man volume 1 #30; Nov. 1965).

Çat is a town and district of Erzurum Province in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. The mayor is Arif Hikmet Kılıç ( CHP). The population is 4,463 (as of 2010).

CAT (Civil Aviation Training) is an international simulation and training publication produced bi-monthly in the UK by Halldale Media. CAT was first published in 1990, and has provided continuous, international coverage ever since with its world-wide team of journalists.

Halldale Media also publish CAT's sister publication Military Simulation & Training Magazine (MS&T).

cat is a standard Unix utility that reads files sequentially, writing them to standard output. The name is derived from its function to concatenate files.

The domestic cat or the feral cat is a small, typically furry, carnivorous mammal. They are often called house cats when kept as indoor pets or simply cats when there is no need to distinguish them from other felids and felines. Cats are often valued by humans for companionship and for their ability to hunt vermin. There are more than 70 cat breeds; different associations proclaim different numbers according to their standards.

Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with a strong, flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. Cat senses fit a crepuscular and predatory ecological niche. Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small animals. They can see in near darkness. Like most other mammals, cats have poorer color vision and a better sense of smell than humans. Cats, despite being solitary hunters, are a social species and cat communication includes the use of a variety of vocalizations ( mewing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting), as well as cat pheromones and types of cat-specific body language.

Cats have a high breeding rate. Under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by neutering and the abandonment of former household pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, requiring population control. This has contributed, along with habitat destruction and other factors, to the extinction of many bird species. Cats have been known to extirpate a bird species within specific regions and may have contributed to the extinction of isolated island populations. Cats are thought to be primarily, though not solely, responsible for the extinction of 33 species of birds, and the presence of feral and free ranging cats makes some locations unsuitable for attempted species reintroduction in otherwise suitable locations.

Since cats were venerated in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there, but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic from around 9,500 years ago (7,500 BC). A genetic study in 2007 concluded that domestic cats are descended from Near Eastern wildcats, having diverged around 8,000 BC in West Asia. A 2016 study found that leopard cats were undergoing domestication independently in China around 5,500 BC, though this line of partially domesticated cats leaves no trace in the domesticated populations of today.

As of a 2007 study, cats are the second most popular pet in the United States by number of pets owned, behind the first, which is freshwater fish.

The cat is the fourth animal symbol in the 12-year cycle of the Vietnamese zodiac, taking place of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. As such, the traits associated with the Rabbit are attributed to the cat. Cats are in conflict with the Rat.

Legends relating to the order of the Chinese zodiac often include stories as to why the cat was not included among the twelve. Because the Rat tricked the cat into missing the banquet with the Jade Emperor, the cat was not included and wasn't aware that the banquet was going on and was not given a year, thus began the antipathy between cats and Rats. It is possible domesticated cats had not proliferated through China at the zodiac's induction.

There have been various explanations of why the Vietnamese, unlike all other countries who follow the Sino lunar calendar, have the cat instead of the Rabbit as a zodiac animal. One explanation is that the ancient word for Rabbit (Mao) sounds like cat (Mao).

The GSI C/A/T (Computer Assisted Typesetter) is a phototypesetter developed by Graphic Systems in 1972. This phototypesetter, along with troff software for UNIX, revolutionized the typesetting and document printing industry. Phototypesetting is most often used with offset printing technology.

The GSI C/A/T phototypesetter was marketed by Singer Corporation in 1974 before the company was purchased by Wang Laboratories in 1978.

Graphic Systems designed a simple computer front-end to print basic text as display type. Full scale page composition computing was designed at Bell Laboratories as part of the UNIX project.