rain cats and dogs
\ˌɹeɪn ˈkæts ənd ˈdɔɡz\
The verdict
“rain cats and dogs” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 18
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Pleuvoir à verse, pleuvoir des cordes.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rain cats and dogs |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ˌɹeɪn ˈkæts ənd ˈdɔɡz\ |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “rain cats and dogs” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for rain cats and dogs is 18 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ˌɹeɪn ˈkæts ənd ˈdɔɡz\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Pleuvoir à verse, pleuvoir des cordes.".
No misspelling variants are generated for rain cats and dogs in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is rain cats and dogs, spelled R-A-I-N- -C-A-T-S- -A-N-D- -D-O-G-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Pleuvoir à verse, pleuvoir des cordes.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “rain cats and dogs, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/rain-cats-and-dogs
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "rain cats and dogs"?
What does "rain cats and dogs" mean?
How do you pronounce "rain cats and dogs"?
What language does "rain cats and dogs" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “rain cats and dogs”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is R-A-I-N- -C-A-T-S- -A-N-D- -D-O-G-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ˌɹeɪn ˈkæts ənd ˈdɔɡz\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our French index: