Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The crying of cats; a howling or screeching.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The cry of cats; a harsh, disagreeable noise or cry like the cry of cats.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Present participle of
caterwaul .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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This whole line of caterwauling is getting very old and stale …
Conservative Republican Participation - Morton_C_Blackwell’s blog - RedState 2009
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Listening to all the caterwauling from the right, one would think that Immigration Reform is a new concept, rather than a decades old problem.
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The homophobic caterwauling is a distraction from the class war.
Think Progress » “Dogs aren’t born mooing, and people aren’t born gay.” 2006
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Through the warmer months you can hear the likes of every kind of caterwauling at ungodly times in the night.
Archive 2009-10-01 2009
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Through the warmer months you can hear the likes of every kind of caterwauling at ungodly times in the night.
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It's a big, swooping song with huge, dramatic riffs and kind of caterwauling vocals, and it's a song about her mother's struggle with cancer.
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Maine coon cat with lungs like a set of bagpipes, I do not use the word "caterwauling" lightly.
Hooray for long weekends moriarty6 2006
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But if one of these women is sensitive enough to know she is beginning to strain in her argument and will lower her voice and persist in keeping it lowered the effect upon herself and the other woman will put the "caterwauling" out of the question.
Nerves and Common Sense Annie Payson Call 1896
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If you have ever found yourself in the past aiding and abetting such an ugly sound in argument with another -- say to yourself "caterwauling,"
Nerves and Common Sense Annie Payson Call 1896
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A venerable and hitherto decorous old deacon of Roxbury not only left the church when the hated bass-viol began its accompanying notes, but he stood for a long time outside the church door stridently "caterwauling" at the top of his lungs.
Sabbath in Puritan New England Alice Morse Earle 1881
minethlos commented on the word caterwauling
"Men and Women desirous of Copulation, a Term borrowed from Cats."
June 30, 2008
Prolagus commented on the word caterwauling
(Mr. Richard, by Belle and Sebastian)
November 8, 2010