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cat

/ˈkæt/noun, verb, adjective

cat is spelled C-A-T: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 60 times per million words in written English, the 1,724th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, cat means “A mammal of the family Felidae” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cat is cats.

How many letters and syllables are in cat?

Letters3: C-A-T
Syllables1
In writing60 times per million words; the 1,724th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is cat?

Cat appears 60 times per million words in written English, the 1,724th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce cat?

  • UK /ˈkæt/
  • UK [ˈkʰæt]
  • US /ˈkæt/

Cat has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-a_cat.ogg, En-us-cat.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-cat.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with cat?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as cat from its last stressed vowel (/æt/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: act, tac.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of cat

  • cats plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • catte
  • catting participle, present
  • catted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does cat mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A mammal of the family Felidae.

  2. 2

    A carnivorous, four-legged, generally furry domesticated species (Felis catus) of feline animal, commonly kept as a house pet.

  3. 3

    The flesh of this animal eaten as food.

  4. 4

    Any similar, chiefly non-domesticated, carnivorous mammal of the family Felidae, which includes bobcats, caracals, cheetahs, cougars, leopards, lions, lynxes, tigers, and other such species.

  5. 5

    Chiefly with a descriptive word: an animal not of the family Felidae which (somewhat) resembles a domestic feline (etymology 1, noun sense 1.1.1).

    civet cat    polecat

  6. 6

    derogatoryoffensiveAn angry or spiteful person, especially a woman.

  7. 7

    datedslangAn ordinary person, especially a man; a fellow, a guy.

  8. 8

    USslangSynonym of itinerant worker.

  9. 9

    A program and command in Unix that reads one or more files and directs their content to the standard output.

  10. 10

    slangA street name of the drug methcathinone.

  11. 11

    Abbreviation of catapult.

    a carrier's bow cats

  12. 12

    Abbreviation of catalytic converter.

  13. 13

    Abbreviation of catamaran.

  14. 14

    Abbreviation of category.

  15. 15

    Abbreviation of catfish.

  16. 16

    slangAny of a variety of earth-moving machines. (from their manufacturer Caterpillar Inc.)

  17. 17

    A ground vehicle which uses caterpillar tracks, especially tractors, trucks, minibuses, and snow groomers.

verb

  1. 1

    To hoist (an anchor) by its ring so that it hangs at the cathead.

  2. 2

    To flog with a cat-o'-nine-tails.

  3. 3

    archaicslangTo vomit.

  4. 4

    To go wandering at night.

  5. 5

    To gossip in a catty manner.

  6. 6

    To apply the cat command to (one or more files).

  7. 7

    slangTo dump large amounts of data on (an unprepared target), usually with no intention of browsing it carefully.

adjective

  1. 1

    IrelandcolloquialCatastrophic; terrible, disastrous.

    The weather was cat, so they returned home early.

noun

as Cat
  1. 1

    slangA piece of heavy machinery, such as a backhoe or bulldozer, of the Caterpillar brand. (Occasionally, loosely, any big yellow machine of the type.)

    Upon touring the mine, they found it to be a veritable canyon with some monstrous Cats trundling in the background.

  2. 2

    informalA Catalina flying boat.

noun

as CAT
  1. 1

    Acronym of Central Atlas Tamazight.

  2. 2

    Acronym of computer-adaptive test.

  3. 3

    Acronym of common admission test.

  4. 4

    Acronym of civil air transport.

  5. 5

    Acronym of clear-air turbulence.

  6. 6

    Acronym of computed axial tomography.

  7. 7

    Acronym of career aptitude test.

  8. 8

    Acronym of computer-assisted/aided translation.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Cat in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchchat, chatte (domestic species), féliforme, féliformes, féloidé, féloidés (member of the suborder (or superfamily)…)
GermanKatze, Kater, Kätzin, Pantoffeltiger, Chatz, Chats (domestic species)
Portuguesegato, gata, gato-doméstico, bichano (domestic species), felino, felina (member of the family Felidae)
Spanishgato, gata, mish, misha, mishingo, mishinga (domestic species)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cat come from?

From Middle English cat, catte, from Old English catt (“male cat”), catte (“female cat”), from Proto-West Germanic *kattu, from Proto-Germanic *kattuz, generally thought to be from Late Latin cattus (“domestic cat”) (c. 350, Palladius), from Latin catta (c. 75 A.D., Martial), possibly from an Afroasiatic language. Doublet of gato.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after cat