This would roughly match how domestic cats themselves spread, as genetic studies suggest they began to spread out of theNear East /Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic (being in Cyprus by 9500 years ago,[2][3] and Greece and Italy by 2500 years ago[4]), especially after they became popular in Egypt.[2][3] However, every proposed source word has presented problems.Adolphe Pictet[5] and many subsequent sources refer toBarabra (Nubian)[script needed](kaddîska) and "Nouba" (Nobiin)ⲕⲁⲇⲓ̄ⲥ(kadīs,“kadīs”) as possible sources or cognates,[6] but M. Lionel Bender says the Nubian word is a loan fromArabicقِطَّة(qiṭṭa).[7] Ibn Duraid dismissedArabicقِطَّة(qiṭṭa) as non-Arabic in origin, whereas the more "proper" term in Arabic is the now-rareArabicسِنَّوْر(sinnawr).[8] Jean-Paul Savignac suggests the Latin word is from an Egyptian precursor ofCopticϣⲁⲩ(šau,“tomcat”) suffixed with feminine-t,[9] but John Huehnergard says "the source [...] was clearly not Egyptian itself, where no analogous form is attested."[7]
It may be awanderword.[10] Kroonen says the word must have existed in Germanic from a very early date, as it shows morphological alternations, and suggests that it might have been borrowed from Uralic, compareNorthern Samigađfe(“female stoat”) andHungarianhölgy(“stoat; lady, bride”) fromProto-Uralic*käďwä(“female (of a fur animal)”).[11]
Mammals need two genes to make the taste receptor for sugar. Studies in variouscats (tigers, cheetahs and domestic cats) showed that one of these genes has mutated and no longer works.
At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, orcat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
2019 June 6, “A gaggle, a confusion and a conspiracy - bizarre animal collective group names”, inBBC[4]:
“[…]—Say, do you mind telling me if people around here really eat cats?” He felt a shiver in the pit of his stomach. “Do they eatcat?” said the little old man, profoundly shocked.
You do not eatcat simply for the thrill of eatingcat. You eatcat because cats have a livelyjingshen, or spirit, and thus by eating the animal you will improve your spirits.
What fags are true I know what Mack's might do I'm quite familiar withcats like you Provoke to get me give me a good reason to smoke me Try to break me but never wrote me)
I started showing up early for every team practice, and when all those othercats jetted to hit the showers, I put in even more work on the court, eliminating my weaknesses, practicing drills and perfecting my outside shot.
2006, “Sick of it all”, in Masta Ace (lyrics),Pariah:
I am sick of rappers claiming they hot when they really not I am sick of rappers bragging about shit they ain’t really got Thesecats stay rapping about cars they don’t own I am sick of rappers bragging about models they don’t bone.[…] And I am sick of all thesecats with no talent That never lived in the hood but yet their lyrics be so violent.
1999, Carl P. Eby,Hemingway’s Fetishism: Psychoanalysis and the Mirror of Manhood, State University of New York Press, page124:
"Tell me. Willie said there was acat in love with you. That isn't true, is it?" "Yes. It's true," Hudson corrects her, letting her think that by "cat" he means prostitute.
1839,Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, testimony byHenry L. Pinckney (Assembly No. 335), page44:
[H]e whipped a black man for disobedience of his orders fifty lashes; and again whipped him with acat, which he wound with wire, about the same number of stripes;[…] he used thiscat on one other man, and then destroyed thecat wound with wire.
As she came up, she tried to put hercat in his face for some licking.
2007, Franklin White,Money for Good, Simon and Schuster, page64:
I had a notion to walk over to her, rip her apron off, sling her housecoat open and put my finger inside hercat to see if she was wet or freshly fucked because the dream I had earlier was beginning to really annoy me.
"He doesn't realize that I know," Lord Callan said, "but it's been pretty obvious that most of hiscatting about London's darker alleys has been a search for his origins.
2010, Claude Brown,Manchild in the Promised Land, page18:
This was going to be my first try atcatting out. I went looking for somebody tocat with me.
2012, Valerie Hansen,Wages of Sin:
My own dear wife could have tended to his needs if she hadn't been outcatting.
Men from young to middleaged, with matt faces, vivacious and brightly dressed,catted together in gay groups.
1996, Alistair Boyle,The Unlucky Seven:
They smiled, touched, rolled their eyes and raised their eyebrows, as they relived the audition andcatted about some of their competition.
2016, Melanie Benjamin,The Swans of Fifth Avenue, page293:
In the story, Lady Ina gossiped andcatted about a parade of the rich and famous—Jackie Kennedy looking like an exaggerated version of herself, Princess Margaret so boring she made people fall asleep, Gloria Vanderbilt so ditzy she didn't recognize her first husband.
She missed the fish diet of her own country, and twice every summer she sent the boys to the river, twenty miles to the southward, to fish for channelcat.
1916, M. Shults, “Fishing for Yellow Cat in the Brazos”, inField and Stream,vol. 21, 478:
Fishing forcat is probably, up to a certain stage, the least exciting of all similar sports.
↑3.03.1Claudio Ottoni, Wim Van Neer, Eva-Maria Geigl, et al,The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world, inNature: Ecology & Evolution, volume 1 (19 June 2017) (doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0139); summarized e.g. byPLOS
^Dennis C. Turner, Patrick Bateson,The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour (→ISBN), page 93
^Pictet, Adolphe (1859),Les origines indo-européennes, ou Les Aryas primitifs: essai de paléontologie linguistique, volume I, Paris: J. Cherbuliez,page381
^Otto Keller,Die antike Tierwelt, vol. 1:Säugetiere (Leipzig, 1909), 75; Walther von Wartburg, ed.Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, vol. 2 (Basel: R. G. Zbinden, 1922–1967), 520.
↑7.07.1John Huehnergard, “Qitta: Arabic Cats”, inClassical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms, ed. Beatrice Gruendler (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 407–18.
↑3.03.1Finck, F. N. (1899),Die araner mundart [The Aran Dialect] (in German), Zweiter Band: Wörterbuch [Second volume: Dictionary], Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, page148
^de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1977),Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge: An Deilbhíocht [The Irish of Cois Fharraige: Accidence] (in Irish), 2nd edition, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath[Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies], page313
^Ó Máille, T. S. (1974),Liosta Focal as Ros Muc [Word List from Rosmuck] (in Irish), Baile Átha Cliath [Dublin]: Irish University Press,→ISBN, page38
^Mhac an Fhailigh, Éamonn (1968),The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo: A Phonemic Study, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, section 112, page27
^Oftedal, M. (1956),A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland, Vol. III: The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis, Oslo: Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap
^John MacPherson (1945) The Gaelic dialect of North Uist (Thesis)[2], Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh
^Borgstrøm, Carl Hj. (1937),The dialect of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Oslo: Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap
^Seumas Grannd (2000),The Gaelic of Islay: A Comparative Study[3], Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen,→ISBN, pages44-45
^Scouller, Alastair (2017),The Gaelic Dialect of Colonsay (PhD thesis), Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, page103
