BIG CAT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does big cat mean? 

• BIG CAT (noun)
  The noun BIG CAT has 1 sense:

1. any of several large cats typically able to roar and living in the wild

  Familiarity information: BIG CAT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BIG CAT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of several large cats typically able to roar and living in the wild

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

big cat; cat

Hypernyms ("big cat" is a kind of...):

felid; feline (any of various lithe-bodied roundheaded fissiped mammals, many with retractile claws)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "big cat"):

leopard; Panthera pardus (large feline of African and Asian forests usually having a tawny coat with black spots)

ounce; Panthera uncia; snow leopard (large feline of upland central Asia having long thick whitish fur)

Felis onca; jaguar; panther; Panthera onca (a large spotted feline of tropical America similar to the leopard; in some classifications considered a member of the genus Felis)

king of beasts; lion; Panthera leo (large gregarious predatory feline of Africa and India having a tawny coat with a shaggy mane in the male)

Panthera tigris; tiger (large feline of forests in most of Asia having a tawny coat with black stripes; endangered)

liger (offspring of a male lion and a female tiger)

tiglon; tigon (offspring of a male tiger and a female lion)

Acinonyx jubatus; cheetah; chetah (long-legged spotted cat of Africa and southwestern Asia having nonretractile claws; the swiftest mammal; can be trained to run down game)

saber-toothed tiger; sabertooth (any of many extinct cats of the Old and New Worlds having long swordlike upper canine teeth; from the Oligocene through the Pleistocene)

Holonyms ("big cat" is a member of...):

family Felidae; Felidae (cats; wildcats; lions; leopards; cheetahs; saber-toothed tigers)

 Context examples 

Everything had happened at once—the blow, the counter-blow, the squeal of agony from the porcupine, the big cat's squall of sudden hurt and astonishment.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I daresay. There is one point which I should wish to determine.”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But the porcupine, squealing and grunting, with disrupted anatomy trying feebly to roll up into its ball-protection, flicked out its tail again, and again the big cat squalled with hurt and astonishment.

(White Fang, by Jack London)