Raining Cats and Dogs
Whether you're a student of etymology or you don't even know what that word means, tell us how you think this animal expression originated. We'll post the most accurate as well as the most inventive. Email your answer to when_pigs@discovery.com.
In medieval Europe, when the intermarriage within royal families often took on an incestuous nature, many monarchs were actually brain addled. King Bob of the Netherlands believed he was a cocker spaniel and Queen Gwen of Lapland was sure she was a Siamese cat. Both ruled virtually without incident, but the original saying among the great unwashed that they ruled was that they were the "reigning cats and dogs." I read this somewhere so I know it's true.
—Jack Huber
In the quiet little town of Chukaracha in the middle of Kansas, a small family of four were eating dinner when they heard a loud, shrill shriek of one of their 33 cats and a howl from one of their 17 dogs. They rushed outside to be confronted by a tornado half a mile away. All the cats and dogs were gone, they saved themselves by going down into their basement. -After the tornado had passed they went outside to see how much damage was done. And just as they were turning back to go inside, they heard another shrill shriek of a cat and down fell all 33 cats and 17 dogs from the sky.
—Jillanna aka jillanimal
There was probably some storm somewhere and a bunch of cats and dogs got caught in it. Maybe people thought it looked like it had rained cats and dogs!
—cindycl
It's raining cats and dogs is from the French alliterative phrase: "Il pleut les chats et les chiens."
—kapron
A tornado sucked up shelter animals and deposited them in downtown Peoria?
—tmazer
Norse mythology about dogs and cats actually coming down from the gods.
—janiceham
Originated in England: A hundred years ago or two, there was a water shortage in merry ol' England. Since there was so little water, pets didn't get their baths. Finally, one day it rained and everyone took their cats and dogs outside to wash them. (Thank goodness!) The rain happened to be a gully washer (another phrase to explain), which brings us to the association of "raining cats & dogs" with a real downpour.
—sjhanz
It would rain so hard and long that the cats and dogs would be washed out of their dens. When the people came out and saw the cats and dogs they thought they came from the rain.
—cigar2linda
During dought times in Europe, people thought it was never going to rain again. The expression was started by people saying the most outlandish thing they could think of like: "raining cats and dogs."
—lostlake
Being that cats and dogs were kept as pets and hardly ever spayed or neutered, their numbers multiplied tremendously. Thus when it rained in torrents, it was compared to the proliferation rate of cats and dogs.
—laughingravydaze
In the early 1900s roofes were made out of straw. During a rainstorm the dogs and cats would sit on the roofs to stay dry. The rain would make the roofs soft and the weight of the animals would be too much for the roof. They would fall into the houses along with the rain, hence its raining cats and dogs.
—rklenk
Cats and dogs stayed on thatched roofs in Elizabethan England. When it rained hard, the roofts would become wet and the animals would fall through.
—achilton
The rain drops were so large one day someone compared them to the sizes of cats and dogs.
—jackis
In olden times, houses had thatch roofs. The animals would nest in thatch to keep warm. When it rained really hard, it got slippery and animals and bugs would fall out of the thatch. This was also why beds with a canopy were developed — to keep some of these things from falling on you while you slept.
—renia_01
