rain cats and dogs

English

Etymology

Unknown. Perhaps from Ancient Greek κατά (cata, “against”) and δόξα (doxa, “opinion, expectation”), but see Etymology in Citations

Verb

rain cats and dogs (third-person singular simple present rains cats and dogs, present participle raining cats and dogs, simple past and past participle rained cats and dogs)

1. (idiomatic) To rain very heavily.

Synonyms

• (to rain very heavily): bucket, bucket down, chuck it down, rain buckets, rain pitchforks, pelt, piss down (coarse slang), pour, stream, teem

Translations

to rain very heavily

Arabic: إنها تمطر بغزارة (ar) ('innahaa tumTir bi-ghazaara) Catalan: ploure a bots i barrals Chinese: Mandarin: 傾盆大雨 (cmn), 倾盆大雨 (cmn) (qīngpéndàyǔ) Czech: lít jako z konve (cs) Dutch: pijpenstelen regenen, regenen dat het giet Finnish: sataa kaatamalla (fi), sataa äkäisiä ämmiä äkeet selässä (fi), sataa kuin saavista kaataen (fi), kuin esterin perseestä (fi) French: pleuvoir des cordes (fr), pleuvoir à verse (fr), pleuvoir des hallebardes (fr), pleuvoir comme vache qui pisse (fr), (Québec) pleuvoir à boire debout (fr), (Belgium) dracher (fr) German: Bindfäden regnen (de), in Strömen regnen (de), aus allen Kannen gießen (de), aus allen Kannen schütten (de), wie aus Eimern schütten (de) Greek: βρέχει καρεκλοπόδαρα (el), ρίχνει καρεκλοπόδαρα (el), βρέχει με το τουλούμι (el) Icelandic: vera mígandi rigning (is), rigna eldi og brennisteini (is)

Interlingua: pluver torrentialmente Italian: piovere a catinelle (it) Japanese: 土砂降りになる (ja) (どしゃぶりになる, doshaburi-ni naru) Norwegian: høljeregne (no) Polish: leje jak z cebra (pl) Portuguese: (Portugal) chover a cântaros (pt), (Portugal) chover a potes (pt), chover torrencialmente, (Brazil) cair um toró Romanian: a ploua cu găleata (ro) Russian: лить как из ведра (ru) (lit’ kak iz v'edrá) Spanish: llover a cántaros (es) Swedish: ösregna (sv), spöregna (sv), stå som spön i backen (sv) Turkish: bardaktan boşalırcasına yağmak (tr) Vietnamese: trời mưa như trút Welsh: bwrw hen wragedd â ffyn (cy)

Anagrams

• rain dogs and cats