where does the phrase 'raining cats and dogs' originate?

Answer 1

When people lived in houses with straw or thatched roofs, their cats and dogs often slept on the rafters - I suppose that it was warmer up there, what with hot air rising etc. Anyway, when it rained, the wooden rafters would get slippery and the cats and dogs would sometimes fall off. Although how their dogs got up into the rafters is a mystery to me.

Answer 2

Rain cats and dogs-

Also, some times told as rain buckets. Rain very heavily, as in It was raining cats and dogs so I couldn't walk to the store, or It's been raining buckets all day.

Origin of the Phrase -

Origin

This is an interesting phrase in that, although there's no definitive origin, there are several speculative derivations. Before we get to those, lets get some of the incorrect suggestions out of the way.

The phrase seems isn't related to the well-known antipathy between dogs and cats, which is made word in the phrase 'fight like cat and dog'. Aside from the presence of cat and dog in the phrase, there's nothing at all to connect their fighting with raining.

Nor is the phrase in any sense literal, i.e. recording the fact that cats and dogs fell from the sky. Numbers of small creatures, of the size of frogs or fish, do occasionally get carried skywards in freak weather. That must happen to individual dogs or cats from time to time too, but there's no record of groups of them being scooped up in that way. Not that we'd need meteorological record for that - it's plainly implausible.

In fact, 'raining cats and dogs' only makes sense figuratively and the explanations below that attempt to link the phrase to felines, canines and weather seem rather feeble. -

Answer 3

Ther are a number of origins to the saying but perhaps a more likely one is this. A few hundredf years back people used to keep animals in the loft space of their houses. Cats and dogs were supposed to be washed from roofs during heavy weather.

Answer 4

There are a number of different origins of the above phrase which means to rain heavily.
Take your pick!

Answer 5

Will ask an suggestions provider for you In Norse mythology cats have been mentioned to have potential over rain (exceedingly at sea) canines have been symbolic of the Wind God Odin. Cats and canines delivered Wind and Rain.

Answer 6

“Raining cats and dogs.”

In Norse mythology, the dog is associated with wind and the cat with storms. This expression means it's raining very heavily.

Answer 7

It comes from the old thatch roofs on cottages. the animals used to live in the thatch to keep warm in winter and when it rained heavily the animals jumped out of the thatch so that they didn't get wet. It rained cats and dogs.

Answer 8

when it would rain, all the stray cats and dogs would linger on people's porches to stay out of the rain. since you don't usually see so many cats and dogs in one place, it would look like it was raining cats and dogs.

Answer 9

My theather teacher told me that when they had plays like at the globe theather, cats and dogs would get into the onings of the roof and when the plays started they would fall on the poor people who where below.
-Cheers!

Answer 10

This comes from Norse Mythology, where people believed that one of them represented wind and the other rain.