Traveled from Africa alongside the animal, replacing Latin 'feles' and entering nearly every European language unchanged.
A small domesticated carnivorous mammal (Felis catus) with soft fur, retractile claws, and a reputation for independence, kept as a pet or for catching mice.
The word 'cat' entered Old English as 'catt' (masculine) or 'catte' (feminine), borrowed from Late Latin 'cattus,' which first appears in the 4th century in the writings of Palladius. The Latin word itself is almost certainly a borrowing from an Afro-Asiatic language — likely Nubian 'kadīs' or Berber 'kaddîska' — reflecting the fact that domestic cats were originally an African animal, domesticated in the Near East around 7500 BCE and reaching Europe through Egypt and Rome. The word spread