catty

From cat +‎ -y. Compare Dutch kattig (“catty”); in sense “hostility”, see catfight.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæti/, (US) [ˈkʰæɾi]

• Audio (Southern England); [-t-]:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æti
• Homophones: caddie (Flapping), caddy (Flapping)

catty (comparative cattier, superlative cattiest)

1. (informal, of a person or remark) With subtle hostility in an effort to hurt, annoy, or upset, particularly among women.
2. (informal) Resembling or characteristic of a cat.

   a catty smell

• (spiteful): bitchy (derogatory), cattish, malicious, nasty, snide, spiteful

• catfight

• (hostility, especially between women): handbags, handbags at dawn, the handbags come out, meow

From Malay kati, from Tamil கட்டி (kaṭṭi).

• cattee, kati
• katti, katty (both obsolete)

catty (plural catties or cattys)

1. A (unit of) weight used in China which is metricated in Mainland China as exactly 0.5 kg, and approximately 0.6 kg for other places.
   • 1699, Captain William Dampier, A new voyage round the world, Volume 1:

     16 Mess, make a Tale, which here is 20 s. English, 5 Tale make a Bancal, a weight so called, and 20 Bancal make a Catty, another weight.

   • 1847, Robert Montgomery Martin, China; Political, Commercial, and Social, volume 2, James Madden, page 124:

     Transparent yellow pieces are the best; the price is from eight to fourteen dollars per catty, according to size and quality.

   • 1971 October 21 [1971 October 11], “Hupeh Cotton Production”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, volume I, number 204, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, sourced from Wuhan Hupeh Provincial Service, translation of original in Mandarin, →ISSN, →OCLC, People's Republic of China: Central-South Region, page D 3:

     The 130,000 mou of cotton fields in (Pailichou) district of Chihchiang County have produced 17 million catties of cotton seed, and 2.5 million catties of ginned cotton have been sold to the state.

   • 2009, Huaiyin Li, Village China Under Socialism and Reform: A Micro-History, 1948-2008, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 94:

     To limit team members' consumption, it issued food stamps to the villagers and allowed everyone to eat one catty of rice a day.

catty (plural catties)

1. (slang) A catapult.
   • 2009, Sheldon Arensen, The Carjackers, page 43:

     “Give me your slingshot, and I'll let you have it back after school this afternoon,” she said firmly. […] I stuck the 'catty' into my back pocket and ran outside to meet the others.

   • 2017, David Cooper, Christiaan Barnard: The Surgeon Who Dared:

     You could also keep a tennis ball and a frog, or a catapult and a frog, but not all three together. I know because I tried it. The frog got a bit squashed between the ball and the handle of the catty.