[kat] 
noun, verb, cat⋅ted, cat⋅ting.| 1. | a small domesticated carnivore, Felis domestica or F. catus, bred in a number of varieties. |
| 2. | any of several carnivores of the family Felidae, as the lion, tiger, leopard or jaguar, etc. |
| 3. | Slang.
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| 4. | a woman given to spiteful or malicious gossip. |
| 5. | the fur of the domestic cat. |
| 6. | a cat-o'-nine-tails. |
| 7. | Games.
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| 8. | a catboat. |
| 9. | a catamaran. |
| 10. | a catfish. |
| 11. | Nautical. a tackle used in hoisting an anchor to the cathead. |
| 12. | a double tripod having six legs but resting on only three no matter how it is set down, usually used before or over a fire. |
| 13. | Navy Informal. catapult (def. 2). |
| 14. | (in medieval warfare) a movable shelter for providing protection when approaching a fortification. |
| 15. | to flog with a cat-o'-nine-tails. |
| 16. | Nautical. to hoist (an anchor) and secure to a cathead. |
| 17. | British Slang. to vomit. |
| 18. | cat around, Slang.
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| 19. | bell the cat, to attempt something formidable or dangerous. |
| 20. | let the cat out of the bag, to divulge a secret, esp. inadvertently or carelessly: He let the cat out of the bag, and the surprise party wasn't a surprise after all. |
[kat] | Trademark. a Caterpillar tractor. |
| 1. | clear-air turbulence. |
| 2. | Medicine/Medical. computerized axial tomography. |
| 1. | catalog; catalogue. |
| 2. | catechism. |
| a prefix meaning “down,” “against,” “back,” occurring originally in loanwords from Greek (cataclysm; catalog; catalepsy); on this model, used in the formation of other compound words (catagenesis; cataphyll). |
[kleer-air] | atmospheric turbulence, sometimes severe, occurring in air devoid of clouds or other visible indicators that turbulence might be present. Abbreviation: CAT |
| cat (kāt) n.
v. tr. Nautical To hoist an anchor to (the cathead). v. intr. Slang To look for sexual partners; have an affair or affairs: "catting around with every lady in sight" (Gore Vidal). [Middle English, from Old English catt, from Germanic *kattuz. Sense 6d, short for catamaran.] |
| CAT abbr.
|
| clear-air turbulence (klîr'âr') n. Abbr. CAT Atmospheric turbulence that occurs under tranquil and cloudless conditions and subjects aircraft to strong updrafts and downdrafts. |
| com·put·er·ized axial tomography (kəm-pyōō'tə-rīzd') n. Abbr. CAT Tomography in which computer analysis of a series of cross-sectional scans made along a single axis of a bodily structure or tissue is used to construct a three-dimensional image of that structure. The technique is used in diagnostic studies of internal bodily structures, as in the detection of tumors or brain aneurysms. |
CAT abbr.
computerized axial tomography
cata- pref.
Down: catabolism.
Reverse; backward; degenerative: cataplasia.
| clear-air turbulence (klîr'âr') Pronunciation Key
Atmospheric turbulence that occurs under tranquil and cloudless conditions at high altitudes near jet streams, mountain ranges, and developing storm systems. It subjects aircraft to strong updrafts and downdrafts. |
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).
[The Jargon File]
cat tool
(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)
cat
In addition to the idioms beginning with cat, also see alley cat; bell the cat; curiosity killed the cat; fat cat; grin like a Cheshire cat; let the cat out of the bag; like a cat on a hot brick; look like something the cat dragged in; look like the cat that ate the canary; more than one way to skin a cat; not enough room to swing a cat; play cat and mouse; rain cats and dogs; when the cat's away.
| cat cataract |
CAT
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