Words with Webster: Meow, Plus Friendly Fill-Ins

We have two fun Friday features for you today. First up is Real Cat Webster, who has a real cat word to share. After that, it’s on to Friendly Fill-Ins!

Words with Webster

Hi, everybody! It’s me, Real Cat Webster, welcoming you to Words with Me. I think I picked a really good word this week. It’s one that we all know and use a whole lot: "meow." I’m pretty sure we all know what a meow is, but to get an official definition, Mommy helped me look in my favorite dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s. In there, it said that “meow” means “the cry of a cat” (yeah, we knew that), but it also means “a spiteful or malicious remark” (I never heard that one before; why do people use cat words to say something mean, anyway?). The word can be spelled a whole bunch of different ways too: miaow, miau, or meaow.

Next, we looked in the Oxford English Dictionary, where we learned that “meow” as a verb first appeared in print in 1632. It was in Robert Sherwood and Randle Cotgrave’s A dictionarie of the French and English tongues... [and] A most copious dictionarie, of the English set before the French (not the catchiest title I’ve ever heard, but I guess they did things different back then). The quote is

To meaw, or meawle (as a cat), miauler.

I was surprised that the word appeared that late (and it wasn’t used as a noun until the 19th century), so I asked Mommy to click the link for “mew,” a word that is related to “meow” and seems to have appeared about 300 years earlier.  We’re looking at the verb again, with the following meaning: “of a cat: to make its characteristic cry.” The word appeared in about 1325, in the Glossary of W. de Bibbesworth:

Chate mimoune, mewich.

I read that and said, “Huh?,” so we found this other quote from Shakespeare:

Thrice the brinded Cat hath mew'd. (Macbeth, IV.i.1 [about 1616])

There, that's better. By the way, that quote is also the title of an excellent book Miss C reviewed last year.

We know that forms of the word "mew" have been around since way before 1325 though, because "miu" or "mii" was the Egyptian word for cat.

Kittens learn "meow" in their first days of kittengarten.
Image via Adobe Stock.

Regardless of how it’s spelled or anything, the word “meow” seems to come from people trying to imitate the sound a cat makes. I can understand how hard this must be for you humans out there, because we cats make lots and lots of different sounds. Most of you don’t sound anything like us, but hey, thanks for trying! One other thing about the “meow” sound that’s really interesting is how similar the word is in different languages. You can learn more about that in our post “30 Ways to Say Meow.”

Friendly Fill-Ins

And now it’s time for Friendly Fill-Ins, from 15andmeowing and McGuffy’s Reader. They are a fun way to learn a little bit about the authors of the blogs you read. The first two questions, answered by Real Cat Paisley this week, are from Ellen of 15andmeowing, and the next two, answered by old SoLT, are from Annie of McGuffy’s Reader.

Real Cat Paisley’s answers:

1. Being a dog is a waste of time. All our dog does is eat my food when I’m not looking and sit around looking dumb. What’s the point?

2. My favorite app is the one Mommy uses when she walks the dog, because it means the dog is leaving the house for a little while. (Mommy Old SoLT adds: It’s Walk for a Dog, by WoofTrax).

Old SoLT’s answers:

3. My first car was a 1991 Nissan pickup. I loved that little truck!

4. The best car I ever owned was is my Volkswagen Beetle, because it is just so much fun to drive.