Raining cats and dogs

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Meaning

Raining extremely heavily.

Origin

The modern wording is recorded in Jonathan Swift's A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation in 1738, and related animal-heavy rain expressions are older. The image may be comic exaggeration, but its exact development is unknown. Explanations involving dead animals washed through streets, pets falling from thatched roofs, Norse weather gods, or a corruption of catadupe are conjectures rather than demonstrated origins. Even the proposed link with catbolts and dogbolts remains a hypothesis.

Research Sources

  1. Raining cats and dogs Oxford University Press Blog
  2. What is the origin of the phrase it's raining cats and dogs? Library of Congress

Variants

  • Rain cats and dogs
  • Raining dogs and cats

Usage Examples

  • It was raining cats and dogs, so the match was abandoned before half-time.
  • Take the larger umbrella; it is supposed to rain cats and dogs this afternoon.
  • By the time we reached the station, it was raining cats and dogs and every platform was soaked.

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