Cat

14 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  cat \cat\ (k[a^]t), n. [AS. cat; akin to D. & Dan. kat, Sw.
     katt, Icel. k["o]ttr, G. katze, kater, Ir. cat, W. cath,
     Armor. kaz, LL. catus, Bisc. catua, NGr. ga`ta, ga`tos, Russ.
     & Pol. kot, Turk. kedi, Ar. qitt; of unknown origin. Cf.
     {Kitten}.]
     1. (Zool.) Any animal belonging to the natural family


        {Felidae}, and in particular to the various species of the
        genera {Felis}, {Panthera}, and {Lynx}. The domestic cat
        is {Felis domestica}. The European wild cat ({Felis
        catus}) is much larger than the domestic cat. In the
        United States the name {wild cat} is commonly applied to
        the bay lynx ({Lynx rufus}). The larger felines, such as
        the lion, tiger, leopard, and cougar, are often referred
        to as cats, and sometimes as big cats. See {Wild cat}, and
        {Tiger cat}.
        [1913 Webster +PJC]
  
     Note: The domestic cat includes many varieties named from
           their place of origin or from some peculiarity; as, the
           {Angora cat}; the {Maltese cat}; the {Manx cat}; the
           {Siamese cat}.
           [1913 Webster]
  
                 Laying aside their often rancorous debate over
                 how best to preserve the {Florida panther}, state
                 and federal wildlife officials,
                 environmentalists, and independent scientists
                 endorsed the proposal, and in 1995 the eight cats
                 [female Texas cougars] were brought from Texas
                 and released. . . .
                 Uprooted from the arid hills of West Texas, three
                 of the imports have died, but the remaining five
                 adapted to swamp life and have each given birth
                 to at least one litter of kittens. --Mark Derr
                                                    (N. Y. Times,
                                                    Nov. 2, 1999,
                                                    Science Times
                                                    p. F2).
           [PJC]
  
     Note: The word cat is also used to designate other animals,
           from some fancied resemblance; as, civet cat, fisher
           cat, catbird, catfish shark, sea cat.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Naut.)
        (a) A strong vessel with a narrow stern, projecting
            quarters, and deep waist. It is employed in the coal
            and timber trade.
        (b) A strong tackle used to draw an anchor up to the
            cathead of a ship. --Totten.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A double tripod (for holding a plate, etc.), having six
        feet, of which three rest on the ground, in whatever
        position it is placed.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. An old game; specifically:
        (a) The game of tipcat and the implement with which it is
            played. See {Tipcat}.
        (b) A game of ball, called, according to the number of
            batters, one old cat, two old cat, etc.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     5. same as {cat o' nine tails}; as, British sailors feared
        the cat.
        [1913 Webster + WordNet 1.5]
  
     6. A {catamaran}.
        [PJC]
  
     {Angora cat}, {blind cat}, See under {Angora}, {Blind}.
  
     {Black cat} the fisher. See under {Black}.
  
     {Cat and dog}, like a cat and dog; quarrelsome; inharmonious.
        "I am sure we have lived a cat and dog life of it."
        --Coleridge.
  
     {Cat block} (Naut.), a heavy iron-strapped block with a large
        hook, part of the tackle used in drawing an anchor up to
        the cathead.
  
     {Cat hook} (Naut.), a strong hook attached to a cat block.
  
     {Cat nap}, a very short sleep. [Colloq.]
  
     {Cat o' nine tails}, an instrument of punishment consisting
        of nine pieces of knotted line or cord fastened to a
        handle; -- formerly used to flog offenders on the bare
        back.
  
     {Cat's cradle}, game played, esp. by children, with a string
        looped on the fingers so, as to resemble small cradle. The
        string is transferred from the fingers of one to those of
        another, at each transfer with a change of form. See
        {Cratch}, {Cratch cradle}.
  
     {To bell the cat}, to perform a very dangerous or very
        difficult task; -- taken metaphorically from a fable about
        a mouse who proposes to put a bell on a cat, so as to be
        able to hear the cat coming.
  
     {To let the cat out of the bag}, to tell a secret, carelessly
        or willfully. [Colloq.]
  
     {Bush cat}, the serval. See {Serval}.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Cat \Cat\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Catted}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Catting}.] (Naut.)
     To bring to the cathead; as, to cat an anchor. See {Anchor}.
     --Totten.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Cat o' nine tails \Cat" o' nine" tails`\, cat-o'-nine-tails
  \cat"-o'-nine"-tails`\n.
     1. a whip used as an instrument of punishment consisting of
        nine pieces of knotted line or cord fastened to a handle;
        -- formerly used to flog offenders on the bare back; --
        called also the {cat}. It was used in the British Navy to
        maintain discipline on board sailing ships.
  
     Syn: cat.
          [WordNet 1.5 +PJC] Catopter

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  cat
       n 1: feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and being unable
            to roar; domestic cats; wildcats [syn: {true cat}]
       2: an informal term for a youth or man; "a nice guy"; "the
          guy's only doing it for some doll" [syn: {guy}, {hombre},
          {bozo}]
       3: a spiteful woman gossip; "what a cat she is!"
       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; "in Yemen kat is used daily by 85% of adults"
          [syn: {kat}, {khat}, {qat}, {quat}, {Arabian tea}, {African
          tea}]
       5: a whip with nine knotted cords; "British sailors feared the
          cat" [syn: {cat-o'-nine-tails}]
       6: a large vehicle that is driven by caterpillar tracks;
          frequently used for moving earth in construction and farm
          work [syn: {Caterpillar}]
       7: any of several large cats typically able to roar and living
          in the wild [syn: {big cat}]
       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 [syn: {computerized
          tomography}, {computed tomography}, {CT}, {computerized
          axial tomography}, {computed axial tomography}]
       v 1: beat with a cat-o'-nine-tails
       2: eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth; "After
          drinking too much, the students vomited"; "He purged
          continuously"; "The patient regurgitated the food we gave
          him last night" [syn: {vomit}, {vomit up}, {purge}, {cast},
           {sick}, {be sick}, {disgorge}, {regorge}, {retch}, {puke},
           {barf}, {spew}, {spue}, {chuck}, {upchuck}, {honk}, {regurgitate},
           {throw up}] [ant: {keep down}]
       [also: {catting}, {catted}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  128 Moby Thesaurus words for "cat":
     Abyssinian cat, Adamite, Angora cat, Argus, Cheshire cat,
     Chinchilla cat, Himalayan cat, Maltese cat, Manx cat, Persian cat,
     alley cat, barf, bastard, being, belt, bird, blacksnake, bloke,
     blue cat, blue devils, blues, body, boy, buck, bugger, bullwhack,
     bullwhip, calico cat, cascade, cast, chap, character, coon cat,
     cowhide, creature, crop, customer, dods, dorts, duck, dumps, eagle,
     earthling, feline, feller, fellow, ferret, flagellum, frumps, gee,
     gent, gentleman, gib, gib-cat, grimalkin, groundling, grumps, guy,
     hand, hawk, head, heave, homo, horsewhip, house cat, human,
     human being, individual, jasper, joker, kit, kitling, kitten,
     kitty, kitty-cat, knout, kurbash, lad, lash, life, living soul,
     lynx, man, mopes, mortal, mouser, mulligrubs, mumps, nose, one,
     party, person, personage, personality, pouts, puke, puss, pussy,
     pussycat, quirt, rawhide, razor strap, scourge, silver cat, single,
     sjambok, somebody, someone, soul, spew, strap, stud, sulks,
     sullens, tabby, tabby cat, tellurian, terran, thong, throw up,
     tiger cat, tom, tomcat, tortoise-shell cat, weasel, whip, whiplash,
     worldling
  
  

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  CAT
       Central Alaska Time [-1000] (TZ)
       
       

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  CAT
       Common Authentication Technology (IETF, RFC 1511)
       
       

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  CAT
       Computer Aided Technology (fair)
       
       

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  CAT
       Computer Aided Telephony
       
       

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  CAT
       Computer Aided Testing
       
       

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  cat [from `catenate' via {{Unix}} `cat(1)'] vt. 1. [techspeak] To spew
     an entire file to the screen or some other output sink without pause
     (syn. {blast}). 2. By extension, to dump large amounts of data at an
     unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it carefully. Usage:
     considered silly. Rare outside Unix sites. See also {dd}, {BLT}.
  
     Among Unix fans, `cat(1)' is considered an excellent example of
     user-interface design, because it delivers the file contents without
     such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and because it
     does not require the files to consist of lines of text, but works with
     any sort of data.
  
     Among Unix haters, `cat(1)' is considered the {canonical} example of
     _bad_ user-interface design, because of its woefully unobvious name. It
     is far more often used to {blast} a file to standard output than to
     concatenate two files. The name `cat' for the former operation is just
     as unintuitive as, say, LISP's {cdr}.
  
     Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made.... See also {UUOC}.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  CAT
       
          Common Abstract Tree Language.  R. Voeller & Uwe Schmidt, U
          Kiel, Germany 1983.  Universal intermediate language, used by
          Norsk Data in their family of compilers.  "A Multi-Language
          Compiler System with Automatically Generated Codegenerators,
          U. Schmidt et al, SIGPLAN Notices 19(6):202-2121 (June 1984).
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
       

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  cat
       
           (From "catenate") {Unix}'s command which copies one or
          more entire files to the screen or some other output sink
          without pause.
       
          See also {dd}, {BLT}.
       
          Among {Unix} fans, cat is considered an excellent example of
          user-interface design, because it delivers the file contents
          without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files
          (the {pr} command can be used to do this), and because it does
          not require the files to consist of lines of text, but works
          with any sort of data.
       
          Among Unix haters, cat is considered the {canonical} example
          of *bad* user-interface design, because of its woefully
          unobvious name.  It is far more often used to {blast} a file
          to standard output than to concatenate files.  The name "cat"
          for the former operation is just as unintuitive as, say,
          LISP's {cdr}.
       
          Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made.
       
          (1994-11-29)
       
       

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  CAT, n.  A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be
  kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
  
      This is a dog,
          This is a cat.
      This is a frog,
          This is a rat.
      Run, dog, mew, cat.
      Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.
                                                               Elevenson