Nomenclature and etymology

The word cat derives from Old English catt, which belongs to a group of related words in European languages, including Welsh cath, Spanish gato, French chat (French pronunciation: [ʃɑ]), Basque katu, Byzantine Greek Κάτια kátia, Old Irish cat, Frisian and Dutch kat, German Katze, Armenian katu, and Old Church Slavonic kotka. The ultimate source of all these terms isLate Latin catus, cattus, catta "domestic cat", as opposed to feles "European wildcat". It is unclear whether the Greek or the Latin came first, but they were undoubtedly borrowed from an Afro-Asiatic language akin to Nubian kadís and Berber kaddîska, both meaning "wildcat". The term puss (as in pussycat) may come from Dutch poes or from Low GermanPuuskatte, dialectal Swedish kattepus, or Norwegian pus, pusekatt, all of which primarily denote a woman and, by extension, a female cat.

Classification based on human interaction

Population	Food source	Shelter	Socialized
Pedigree	Fed by owner	Human homes	Yes
Pet	Fed by owner	Human homes	Yes
Semi-feral	General feeding	Buildings	Yes
Feral	General feeding/foraging	Buildings	No
Pseudo-wildcat	Foraging/hunting	None	No

While wildcats are the ancestral species from which domestic cats are descended, there are several intermediate stages between domestic pet and pedigree cats and these entirely wild cats. The semi-feral cat is a cat that is not owned by any one individual, but is generally friendly to people and may be fed by several households. Feral catsare associated with human habitations and may be fed by people or forage in rubbish, but are wary of human interaction. Pseudo-wildcats are descended from domestic cats, but now tend to live entirely independently from people.

A group of cats is referred to as a "clowder", a male cat is called a "tom" (or a "gib", if neutered), and a female is called a "molly" or "queen". The male progenitor of a cat, especially a pedigreed cat, is its "sire", and its female progenitor is its "dam". An immature cat is called a "kitten" (which is also an alternative name for young rats, rabbits, hedgehogs, beavers, squirrels and skunks).

In medieval Britain, the word kitten was interchangeable with the word catling. A cat whose ancestry is formally registered is called a pedigreed cat, purebred cat, or a show cat. In strict terms, a pure-bred cat is one whose ancestry contains only individuals of the same breed. A pedigreed cat is one whose ancestry is recorded, but may have ancestors of different breeds. Cats of unrecorded mixed ancestry are referred to as domestic longhairs and domestic shorthairs or commonly as random-bred, moggies, mongrels, or mutt-cats.