All words / Animals / cat 猫
cat · 3 etymological groups
“cat” in 35 languages From Europe to the Middle East you hear a “cat” sound. Late Latin cattus is a wandering word that travelled with the domestic cat. Elsewhere, names grew out of the call people use for cats, or out of the cat’s own meow.
Indo-European19 languages Germanic
English cat German Katze Dutch kat Swedish katt Icelandic köttur
Italic
Latinnote fēlēs French chat Spanish gato Italian gatto Portuguese gato Romanian pisică
Slavic
Russiannote кошка koshka Polish kot
Celtic
Irish cat Welsh cath
Indo-Iranian
Persian گربه gorbe Hindi बिल्ली billī
Uralic Finnishnote kissa Estoniannote kass Hungariannote macska
Afroasiatic Arabic قطة qiṭṭa Hebrew חָתוּל ḥatul
Sino-Tibetan Mandarin 猫 māo Traditional 貓
Japonic Japanesenote 猫 neko
Koreanic Korean 고양이 goyangi
Austroasiatic Vietnamese mèo
Austronesian Indonesian kucing Filipino pusa Hawaiiannote pōpoki
Language isolates Basquenote katu
The words and etymologies here were compiled by an AI (Claude) from its trained knowledge and have not been reviewed by a specialist. Items with a source have been checked against that source; anything without one may contain errors.
Spotted a mistake? Let us know at ateliercat24@gmail.com .
Forms marked * (such as *ḱwṓ) are reconstructed: no record of them survives, and they are rebuilt by comparing their descendants. Dog, water, mother, moon and three are on the Swadesh list, the basic vocabulary used in comparative linguistics. Cat and tea are here as words that travelled along with the thing they name.
Sources are linked, not reproduced. Wiktionary content is available under CC BY-SA; WALS Online under CC BY.
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