where does the expression "its raining cats and dogs" come from?

Answer 1

What an interesting collection of responses!

I had heard the story that during the time when many houses had thatched roofs, the cats and dogs would nestle into the thatch to keep warm. When the rains came, they would hurriedly jump off the roof, thus leading to the expression "raining cats and dogs."

Answer 2

This is an interesting phrase in that, although there's no definitive origin, there are several speculative derivations.

take your pick:

1. It comes from mythology. Witches, who often took the form of their familiars - cats, are supposed to have ridden the wind. Dogs and wolves were attendants to Odin, the god of storms and sailors associated them with rain. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion.

2. Cats and dogs were supposed to be washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a lease of life with the message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that:

I'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So all the pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs."

This is nonsense of course. It hardly needs debunking, but, lest there be any doubt...

Dogs lived in thatched roofs? No, of course they didn't. Even accepting that mad idea, for them to have slipped off when it rained they would have needed to be on the outside - hardly the place an animal would head for to shelter from bad weather.

3. The phrase is supposed to have originated in England in the 17th century when city streets were filthy and heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals.

The idea that seeing dead cats and dogs floating by in storms would cause people to coin this phrase is just about believable. People may not have actually thought the animals had come from the sky, but might have made up the phrase to suit the occasion.

4. Another suggestion is that it comes from a version of the French word, catadoupe, meaning waterfall.

Well, again. No evidence. If the phrase were 'raining cats' or if there also existed a French word, dogadoupe we might be going somewhere with this one. As there isn't let's pass this by.

Answer 3

We have all heard the expression "it's raining cats and dogs." There are several theories about this rainfall saying. It is possible that the word cat is derived from the Greek word 'catadupe' meaning 'waterfall.' Or it could be raining 'cata doxas,' which is Latin for 'contrary to experience,' or an unusual fall of rain.

In Northern mythology the cat is supposed to have great influence on the weather, and English sailors still say the cat has a gale of wind in her tail when she is unusually frisky. Witches that rode upon the storms were said to assume the form of cats; and the stormy northwest wind is called the cat's nose in the Harz mountains even at the present day. The dog is a signal of wind, like the wolf. Both animals were attendants of Odin, the storm-god. In old German pictures the wind is figured as the "head of a dog or wolf," from which blasts issue. The cat therefore symbolizes the down-pouring of rain, and the dog the strong gusts of wind that accompany a rainstorm; and a rain of "cats and dogs" is a heavy rain with wind.

Answer 4

Interesting theories, but too complicated in my opinion. I bet it's an expression that somebody just invented and it stuck - an exaggeration.
In Spanish there are expressions that are like saying that it's raining upside-down (from the ground to the sky), or that it's raining like somebody is pouring water with a jug, but that has never literally happened, of course. There's no myths about it either.
It's just a way to say that it's a very heavy rain.

Answer 5

That's a good fricken question! man I have no Idea but would love to hear the answer to this one. My guess is that because cats and dogs fight all the time it is a reflection of the meaning of a stormy rain.

Having said that, nobody really knows the true origin.

Answer 6

good question. it was from farm old saying before it become offical english idioms. because farm has lot of dogs and cats as lot of work with dogs and cats at the farm...

it means heavy rain

Answer 7

The phrase is supposed to have originated in England in the 17th century when city streets were filthy and heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals. Including Cats & dogs, hence the phrase.

Answer 8

There are three excellent articles on this topic (from web sites always worth consulting on such things). They do a fair job of listing the main explanations offered for this expression, and esp. of suggesting why most if not all of these explanations are seriously flawed. (Some are, of course, worse than others -- like that of animals sliding from the roof!)

Check them out (I've listed the best first):

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rai1.htm
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/raining%20cats%20and%20dogs.html
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010830

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Here's my own summary of the major ideas these articles lay out, with some notes of my own:

First, note some strong points against ALL the main suggestions:
a) they are ALL simply speculation; we have NO written evidence for ANY of them
b) they don't fit with variations on this expression, and other similar expressions

I think the German equivalent "rain puppies ['junge Hunde'] (and kittens [und Kaetze])" or the "dogs and polecats" version raises some special problems, as I will note below.


More specifically:

1) FOREIGN WORD corrupted ?-- rare French word "catadoupe" ("waterfall") or Greek "catadox"? ("rare occurrence", but I can find NO examples of this word; might be made up just as an explanation). The Greek one is even a very abstract connection (nothing about water, much less storms); and BOTH are unable to explain the German equivalent expression" or the "dogs and polecats" version in which the order is changed (and German frequently does without the kittens).

2) NORSE MYTHOLOGY?
a) Actually Odin is associated with (two) large wolves (Geri and Freki), and his main consort Freya rides a chariot drawn by two lion-sized cats, but none of this quite connects with STORMS, nor is their any evidence offered for the supposed cats-rain, dog-wind connections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin
http://www.explorenorth.com/library/weekly/more/n-odin_raven.htm (picture)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freya
http://www.ealdriht.org/wod.html
http://www.open-sesame.com/Odin.html

b) the animals in this theory are characterized as extremely large. Again, that's a rather different image from the German variant "puppies (and kittens)"
c) there is a HUGE historical gap between any known uses of the expression and the ancient Norse mythology

3) "REAL LIFE"
a) Animals living in and falling out of or fleeing from thatched rooves?? Not only is there no evidence for such habits; this explanation is one of a series of bogus explanations of old expressions in a hoax email called "Life in the 1500s"
compare
http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.htm

b) Filthy city drainage systems in which a heavy storm might cause dead animals to clog it . Again, there are no accounts of such events, even if one might imagine it happening and someone loosely referring to this as 'RAINING cats and dogs' [here 'puppies and kittens' WOULD fit]. But it assumes a LARGE number of dead animals washing down the street at once. Did THIS ever happen? (Some have seen this problem and try to connect the saying directly to events during the bubonic plague. Again, there is NO record of this.)

Also note that every other expression of this sort DOES refer to the weather conditions (esp. the rain itself).

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As for dating the expression -- it must have been well-established by 1630.

Thats because the first EVIDENCE we have of its existence comes from about 1630, when Richard Brome's comic play "The City of Wit" was WRITTEN (the 1652 date often cited is the date of publication of the final version). The FORM Brome uses shows that this must already have been a well-known expression, enough so that he can play with it and vary it.

Oddly, even the fine articles above totally miss the OBVIOUS explanation for the change in order and wording to "dogs and polecats". This is shaped by the Greek and Latin phrases the 'scholar' is (comically) MIS-translating, esp. by "DOGmata POLLA sophon" [='many are the thoughts of the wise']
There is NO reason to think "dogs and polecats" was the original expression!

http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/iemls/renplays/citywit.htm

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Finally, there is no real need for the colorful speculations.

The PAIRING of 'cats and dogs' is natural and common enough. It also follows the pattern of some other expressions for heavy rain, like "raining pitchforks and plow handles" or 'pitchforks and hammer handles' (note the role of alliteration in these expressions --P- & P- or Hammer Handles).

And the odd picture it calls up is hardly so different from other expressions for heavy rain.

Good conclusion in the first article listed above:
"There are other similes which employ falls of improbable objects as figurative ways of expressing the sensory overload of noise and confusion that can occur during a violent rainstorm; people have said that it’s raining like pitchforks (first recorded in 1815), hammer handles, and even chicken coops. It’s probable that the version with cats and dogs fits into this model, without needing to invoke supernatural beliefs or inadequate drainage "

(Compare other such expressions in other languages:
http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/rain.htm )

Answer 9

In 1912, in southwest Kentucky, a bunch of kittens and puppies decided to play a practical joke on their owner, and when he left for work, they jumped off the roof onto his shoulders.

It just so happened he was a weatherman, and when he got to work, he said it was "raining cats and dogs." The newsman, who was his neighbor said "I know. Earlier, I stepped in a poodle." and the saying was born.

Answer 10

In some countries you say It's raining frogs - so i guess it has to be cultural