caterwaul
pronunciation
How to pronounce caterwaul in British English:
UK [ˈkætəwɔ:l]
How to pronounce caterwaul in American English:
US [ˈkætərwɔl]
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- Noun:
- the yowling sound made by a cat in heat
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- Verb:
- utter shrieks, as of cats
Word Origin
- caterwaul
- caterwaul: [14] The earliest known use of this word comes in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue 1386: ‘If the cat’s skin be slick and grey, forth she will, ere any day be dawned, to show her skin, and go a-caterwauling’. The first element of the word is generally accepted to be cat, while the second (in Middle English it was usually -wawe or -wrawe) is presumably onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of a cat wailing or yowling. It is not clear whether it was a purely native creation, or whether English borrowed it from Low German katerwaulen (where kater means ‘tom cat’).
- caterwaul (v.)
- late 14c., caterwrawen, perhaps from Low German katerwaulen "cry like a cat," or formed in English from cater, from Middle Dutch cater "tomcat" + Middle English waul "to yowl," apparently from Old English *wrag, *wrah "angry," of uncertain origin but all somehow imitative. Related: Caterwauled; caterwauling.
Example
- 1. We were woken by a high , snarling caterwaul , a sort of screaming wail .