Careful Words

cat (n.)

cat (v.)

cat (adj.)

  Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.

Hang sorrow! care 'll kill a cat.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3.

Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,

And therefore let's be merry.

George Wither (1588-1667): Poem on Christmas.

But thousands die without or this or that,—

Die, and endow a college or a cat.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 95.

Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

A harmless necessary cat.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"

Like the poor cat i' the adage.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

  There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Of Cunning.

What female heart can gold despise?

What cat's averse to fish?

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): On the death of a Favourite Cat.

A cat may looke on a King.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.

What a monstrous tail our cat has got!

Henry Carey (1663-1743): The Dragon of Wantley. Act ii. Sc. 1.

A woman hath nine lives like a cat.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.

  It has been the providence of Nature to give this creature [the cat] nine lives instead of one.

Pilpay: The Greedy and Ambitious Cat. Fable iii.

  She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.

  When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.

The cat would eate fish, and would not wet her feete.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.