CAT (catted, catting)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: catted    , catting   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does CAT mean? 

• CAT (noun)
  The noun CAT has 8 senses:

1. feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and no ability to roar: domestic cats; wildcats

2. an informal term for a youth or man

3. a spiteful woman gossip

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

5. a whip with nine knotted cords

6. a large tracked vehicle that is propelled by two endless metal belts; frequently used for moving earth in construction and farm work

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

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

  Familiarity information: CAT used as a noun is common.

• CAT (verb)
  The verb CAT has 2 senses:

1. beat with a cat-o'-nine-tails

2. eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth

  Familiarity information: CAT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and no ability to roar: domestic cats; wildcats

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

cat; true cat

Hypernyms ("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 "cat"):

domestic cat; Felis catus; Felis domesticus; house cat (any domesticated member of the genus Felis)

wildcat (any small or medium-sized cat resembling the domestic cat and living in the wild)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An informal term for a youth or man

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

bozo; cat; guy; hombre; sod

Context example:

the poor sod couldn't even buy a drink

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

adult male; man (an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman))

Sense 3

Meaning:

A spiteful woman gossip

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

what a cat she is!

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

gossip; gossiper; gossipmonger; newsmonger; rumormonger; rumourmonger (a person given to gossiping and divulging personal information about others)

adult female; woman (an adult female person (as opposed to a man))

Derivation:

catty (marked by or arising from malice)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The leaves of the shrub Catha edulis which are chewed like tobacco or used to make tea; has the effect of a euphoric stimulant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

African tea; Arabian tea; cat; kat; khat; qat; quat

Context example:

in Yemen kat is used daily by 85% of adults

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

excitant; stimulant; stimulant drug (a drug that temporarily quickens some vital process)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A whip with nine knotted cords

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

cat; cat-o'-nine-tails

Context example:

British sailors feared the cat

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

whip (an instrument with a handle and a flexible lash that is used for whipping)

Derivation:

cat (beat with a cat-o'-nine-tails)

Sense 6

Meaning:

A large tracked vehicle that is propelled by two endless metal belts; frequently used for moving earth in construction and farm work

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

cat; Caterpillar

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

tracked vehicle (a self-propelled vehicle that moves on tracks)

Domain usage:

slang (a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves))

Sense 7

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

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

Sense 8

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

CAT; computed axial tomography; computed tomography; computerized axial tomography; computerized tomography; CT

Hypernyms ("CAT" is a kind of...):

X-radiation; X-raying (obtaining images by the use of X rays)

• CAT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they cat    ... he / she / it cats   
Past simple: catted   
Past participle: catted   
-ing form: catting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Beat with a cat-o'-nine-tails

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "cat" is one way to...):

flog; lash; lather; slash; strap; trounce; welt; whip (beat severely with a whip or rod)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to cat the prisoners

Derivation:

cat (a whip with nine knotted cords)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

barf; be sick; cast; cat; chuck; disgorge; honk; puke; purge; regorge; regurgitate; retch; sick; spew; spue; throw up; upchuck; vomit; vomit up

Context example:

The patient regurgitated the food we gave him last night

Hypernyms (to "cat" is one way to...):

egest; eliminate; excrete; pass (eliminate from the body)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

 Context examples 

Her glad little cry rang in his ears, and he felt her clinging to him like a cat.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that we are familiar with.

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

A genus of gram-negative, anaerobic bacteria that normally populate the mouth and nasopharynx of dogs and cats.

(Capnocytophaga, NCI Thesaurus)

Damn the beast, if he had as many lives as a cat, he would owe them all to me!

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

In the midst of dinner, my mistress’s favourite cat leaped into her lap.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

So that some say he looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say he looks like a cat.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Lord! we shall sit and gape at one another as dull as two cats."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

B. tectus is found in the oral cavity of cats as well as in cat and dog wounds.

(Bacteroides tectus, NCI Thesaurus)

B. henselae is the primary agent of cat scratch disease.

(Bartonella henselae, NCI Thesaurus)

The cat gene is used to select chloramphenicol-resistant colonies following genetic transfection of bacteria.

(CAT Gene, NCI Thesaurus)