If you ’ve ever utter the phrase , " It’sraining cats and frank , " you may have think it was a bizarre way of life to account heavy rainfall . After all , it conjures figure of speech of CT and blackguard tumbling from the sky . While cat and dogs may not literally be falling from the sky , they may have inspire the set phrase .
Learn more about the possible origins of the saying and what the obsolete word " catadupe " has to do with raining unusually intemperately .
Possible Origins of ‘Raining Cats and Dogs’
It ’s not entirely clear where the idiom " it ’s rain down cats and wienerwurst " originate , but there are a few theory . It might have follow from Norse mythology . After all , beast and dogs were the companions of Odin , the god of storms .
Another dispirited but popular theory is that it descend from dead fauna in 17th - century England . Since the street were n’t well - maintained , they flooded when there was heavy rain , leaving deadened cats and dogs in its wake .
Sounds Like…
It may have fare from yet another expression . The Greek expression " cata doxa " stand for " obstinate to opinion " or " unexpectedly . " However , it ’s unvoiced to determine how this would have given way to " computed tomography and dogs . "
Or , it could have come from the now disused word " catadupe , " which mean waterfall in Old English and described arduous rain . As you may see , it ’s difficult to secernate who had first dibs on the " raining cats and domestic dog " metaphor .
It Probably Wasn’t a Thatched Roof
Another hypothesis that is easier to debunk is that the term originate from the cats and dog that " used to cuddle into thatched roofs " during tempest and that were later on washed out . However , as theLibrary of Congressstates , a thatch roof is " naturally pee resistant and pitch to admit water to lam off . "
There goes that theory .
Jonathan Swift’s (Possible) Impact
In Swift ’s " A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation , " one character believes it ’ll rain cats and detent , which might have been a catchier phrasal idiom than what other British author used to key out heavy rain like " raining pitchfork . "
That said , Jonathan Swift was not the first writer to reference cats and Canis familiaris or like phrases .
For model , in " Olor Iscanus , " release in 1651 , British poet Henry Vaughan writes , " dogs and computed tomography rained in exhibitor . " In 1652 , English playwright Richard Brome ’s comedy " City Witt , " put forward : " It shall rain dog and foumart . "
3 Examples of ‘Raining Cats and Dogs’
Today , people utilize " raining cats and dogs " in everyday language to describe particularly heavy rainfall . Here are a few ways to use the phrase .
We create this article in conjunction with AI technology , then made sure it was fact - check and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor program .
