kitten

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English kitoun, also ketoun,^[2][3][4] probably borrowed from Anglo-Norman *kitoun, an unrecorded Anglo-Norman variant^[5][3][6][7] of Old French chitoun, also cheton, now French chaton,^[5][3][8] a diminutive of chat (“cat”),^[3][6][8] from Late Latin cattus, the source of cat.^[8][7][9] Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary trace it instead to an assumed Old Northern French caton, which survives in Norman dialect.^[10][11][12] Merriam-Webster, Klein, Collins and Dictionary.com see the influence of Middle English kiteling, kitling;^{[10][13][12][14]} Weekley compares Old Norse ketlingr.^[15] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford say the ending was assimilated to the suffix -en.^[3][6] The Old French chitoun is found in Gower's Mirour de l'omme.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The young of the cat: 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman, in the fable of the rats and the cat: þere þe catte is a kitoun, þe courte is ful elyng, where the cat is a kitten the court is wretched.^[5][2][7]

Semantic evolution

The word was soon applied to the young of the wildcat,^[2] and later (from 1495) to the young of other animals.^[5] The verb, of a cat bringing forth kittens, is recorded from the same year, in the 1495 printing of Trevisa's Bartholomeus.^[5][8] Johnson (1755) derived it from Dutch.^[16] From 1870 kitten was used playfully of a young girl or a girlfriend,^[5][8] and slang also had it for an attractive young woman (1900) and, in the American underworld, for the youngest member of a gang, who spied out places to rob (1908).^[17] In London slang a kitten was a pint or half-pint pewter pot, a quart being a cat,^[18][17] and in Kent a basket for packing fish.^[18] The phrase to have kittens, to lose one's composure, is recorded in the OED from 1900,^[5] in Etymonline only from 1908.^[8] The adjective kittenish dates from 1754.^[7]

Timeline

• 1377 – the young of the cat, in Piers Plowman.^[5]
• 1495 – the young of other animals; verb, to bring forth kittens.^[5]
• 1754 – kittenish.^[7]
• 1851 – London slang, a pint or half-pint pot.^[18]
• 1870 – a playful young girl; a girlfriend.^[5][8]
• 1874 – short for kitten moth.^[5]
• 1900 – to have kittens, to lose one's composure.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young cat: The kitten chased a ball of wool across the rug.^[12][10][5]
2. The young of certain other small mammals, such as the rabbit.^[10][5]
3. (informal) A young woman, especially an attractive or playful one.^[5][17]
4. have kittens: (informal) to become very anxious, upset or angry.^[12][5]

Verb

1. Of a cat, to give birth to kittens.^[12][10][5]

Word family

• kittenlike
• kit
• kittenish
• kitty
• dust kitten
• sex kitten

Related words

• cat
• kitling

Usage notes

Collins labels have kittens as British and gives have a cow as the American equivalent.^[12] Merriam-Webster records a dialect sense, a roll of dust under furniture, usually in the plural.^[10]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)