What is "grimalkin"

Grimalkin \Gri*mal"kin\, n. [For graymalkin; gray + malkin.]

1. An old cat, especially a she-cat.
   --J. Philips.

2. A bad-tempered old woman.

1620s, name given to a cat (as in, or from, Shakespeare's Gray-Malkin, in "Macbeth," 1605), hence any cat, especially an old she-cat; from gray + Malkin, diminutive of fem. proper name Matilda or Maud.

n. 1 A cat, especially an elderly female. 2 (context archaic English) An old, bad-tempered woman; a crone.

A grimalkin (also called a greymalkin) is an archaic term for a cat. The term stems from "grey" (the colour) plus "malkin", an archaic term with several meanings (a cat, a low class woman, a weakling, a mop or a name) derived from a hypocoristic form of the female name Maud. Scottish legend makes reference to the grimalkin as a faery cat that dwells in the highlands.

The term/name may first come from Beware the Cat (published 1570) by William Baldwin. The novel is a story of talking cats, and part of it relates the story of the Grimalkin's death. According to its editors, the story, and thus the name, originates with Baldwin in terms of being the earliest example known in print. It is also spelled Grimmalkin or Grimolochin.

During the early modern period, the name grimalkin – and cats in general – became associated with the devil and witchcraft. Women tried as witches in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were often accused of having a familiar, frequently a grimalkin. A noted example is a familiar of one of the three witches in Macbeth.

A grimalkin (or greymalkin) is an old or evil-looking female cat.

Grimalkin may also refer to:

• The Grimalkin, the 2006 album by Noekk
• SV Grimalkin, a yacht that competed but failed to finish in the 1979 Fastnet race
• Grimalkin, a character in The Wardstone Chronicles
• "Grimalkin", a poem by Thomas Lynch
• Grimalkin, the 1811 winner of the Doncaster Cup horse race
• Grimalkin, a comic strip by Louis Wain
• Grimalkin, a cat in the book " King of the Wind" by Marguerite Henry (1948)

Graymalkin may refer to:

• the familiar, presumably a cat, of one of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth
• Graymalkin, a fictional character in the X-Men series of comics
• Graymalkin Industries, a front for X-Men activities in comics
• Graymalkin, a space station dismantled and used as material for the island of Providence in Marvel comics
• Graymalkin, a demonic cat in the 1957 British film Curse of the Demon.