Where does “cat” come from?

I appreciate the detailed rules, but I notice the etymology chain you've provided appears to be a template or placeholder ("English category | English fish" repeated) rather than actual etymological data for the word "cat." To write an accurate one-sentence origin summary, I would need: 1. The actual language chain (e.g., English ← Old English ← Proto-Germanic ← etc.) 2. The original word forms in each language with correct spellings and diacritics 3. Any meaning shifts documented along the chain Could you provide the actual etymology chain for "cat"? For reference, the real etymology would trace something like: English *cat* ← Old English *catt* ← Latin *cattus* ← possibly Afro-Asiatic origin, but I want to work from your specific source material to ensure accuracy.

cat (English): An animal of the family Felidae; A person; A...

Definitions

  1. An animal of the family Felidae; A person; A...

Ancestry of “cat”, step by step

cat traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via Middle English catte

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishcatte
2Old Englishcattea female cat
3Germanic*kattǭ
4Germanic*kattuz
5Latincattusa cat
6Latincattaa cat

via Middle English cat

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishcatcat (feline)
2Old Englishcattcat
3Proto-West Germanic*kattucat

Words derived from “cat

Every word from Latin catta
cat — Etymology, Origin & Word History | Etymology Explorer