See herd cats on Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "Formed of herd + cat, perhaps in reference to domesticated cats’ solitary nature. Possibly from the opening scene of Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). Shepherds are discussing sheep and the topic strays to cats: \"Can you imagine a herds of cats waiting to be sheared? Meow! Meow! Woo hoo hoo.\" Earliest usage unknown, but the idiom is attested from the 1980s.",
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"ref": "1983, Paul Henry Mussen, Handbook of Child Psychology, volume 4, page viii:",
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"ref": "1987, Lance Brilliantine, “Dual color copying”, in Office Administration and Automation, page 20:",
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"ref": "2004, Kent Conrad, “Tributes to Thomas A. Daschle”, in Proceedings in the Senate (US Senate):",
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"ref": "2021 January 13, Paul Clifton, “Delivering a basis for rail changes”, in RAIL. issue 922, page 32:",
"text": "It must feel like herding cats, with 20-or-so members and with the big five franchise owning groups.",
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"(idiomatic, in similes) To attempt to control the uncontrollable."
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Download raw JSONL data for herd cats meaning in All languages combined (4.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (65a6e81 and 0dbea76). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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