American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To cry or screech like a cat in heat.
- v. To make a shrill, discordant sound.
- v. To have a noisy argument.
- n. A shrill, discordant sound.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To cry as cats under the influence of the sexual instinct; make a disagreeable howling or screeching.
- v. intransitive To cry as cats in heat; to make a harsh, offensive noise.
- v. intransitive To have a noisy argument, like cats.
- n. A yowling.
- n. A noisy quarrel.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To cry as cats in rutting time; to make a harsh, offensive noise.
- n. A caterwauling.
- v. utter shrieks, as of cats
- n. the yowling sound made by a cat in heat
- From Middle English caterwrawe (one of numerous earlier variants); from cater ("cat") + wrawen/wrawlen ("cry like a cat"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English *caterwawlen : *cater, tomcat; akin to Low German kater + wawlen, wrawlen, to yowl (ultimately of imitative origin). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
“I was not going to indict, complain or caterwaul, which is why I didn't even consider writing a year-in-review piece before very early this morning.”
“Unfortunately, most of the people who caterwaul about being offended are being serious.”
“Most of the people who caterwaul about being offended are being serious.”
“Although other kids were quicker with the software, Simon enjoyed these studies because he loved learning new words, like caterwaul, which meant “to shriek or yowl,” and taciturn, which described someone who was quiet… like him.”
“It's a comedy rule, it seems, that the louder you can say a line or caterwaul in reaction to some hoary bit of high jinks, the more uproarious the moment becomes.”
“Jump the chair light the stove heat the pan stop the floor caterwaul beneath the faucet”
“You walk in to the deafening metronome uncha-uncha-uncha robotic caterwaul, the music almost binary in nature 101101-ing to a crowd of Latino gangbangers, septuagenarians, slumming rich kids and washed-up high school jocks with backwards hats who were just looking for something to date rape.”
“The Australian government is having a harder time endorsing the verdict, prompting the predictable caterwaul from China.”
“ The warbling, caroling, tweeting and trilling were a caterwaul of happiness.”
“The NRA could publicly gnash their teeth and caterwaul about mass disarmament resulting from the draconian rules imposed by the state of North Carolina and the dark overlords of the Time-Warner Cable Arena.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘caterwaul’.
Words formed in imitation of the sound of the things they signify.
Animal sounds in different languages, and the verbs that specify them.
Since Georgetown took down their page, the current definitive website for this information is:
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
Whimpering, wailing words...
Shhh! Listen! Did you hear that?
words delicious to pronounce
List of most of the words I've learned
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
Looking for tweets for caterwaul.