Monday, 19 October 2015

single word requests - Is there an American English equivalent for the British "moggie" for a non-purebred cat?

I hadn't realized it, but a smorgasbord of choices exists, with one or another better or worse, depending on your specific reference cat-sense. The following are some, omitting 'moggie' and others already mentioned in earlier answers. If the sense desired includes a denoted (rather than connoted) 'mixed breed', 'housecat' (already detailed in another answer) in use is probably closest to the use of the British 'moggie' (other than 'mog', also British).



Obsolete, archaic or rare:



  • bad (obs.)

  • gib, or gib-cat (obs. gib, arch. and dial. gib-cat)

  • mewer (rare)

  • mewler (obs., rare)

  • Tibert (arch.)

  • miauler (rare)

Others:



  • baudrons (Sc.)

  • puss-cat (Am. or Brit., nursery or colloq.)

  • puss (colloq.)

  • grimalkin (esp. an old she-cat)

  • miaower

  • pussycat (colloq., orig. nursery)

  • pussy (nursery and colloq.)

  • tigerkin

  • pussums (colloq.)

  • mog (Brit. colloq.)

(All terms and designations [obsolete, archaic, rare, etc.] from the OED Historical Thesaurus.)



The 'tigerkin' choice seems best to me, and avoids denigrating the cat while at the same time suggesting in a positive way that the cat is a mixture of breeds.

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