Thread: Tabby

I run across this word in a book I was reading a few days ago and I am not quite sure what it means. My dictionaries seem to disagree a little about it. Some dictionaries say that a tabby cat is a cat with stripes, period. Other say that it is a cat with stripes or patches or streaks of different color.
So all of them agree that a cat with stripes can be called tabby. What I am interested in is, can you use this word to describe a cat that has no tiger-like stripes, but just spots and patches of a darker color than the rest of its coat?

I always saw it as a kind of a breed, maybe not scientifically but in common parlance. My family's first cat was a tabby, and it had more kind of patches than stripes.
The things translators have to spend their time thinking about eh?

Waxwing! Long time no see !

Thanks for the feedback.
BTW, I wasn't translating this book, but I have the nasty habit of wanting to understand everything I read

As far as I always used it, a tabby was a breed. I think that if you want to describe a cat, it would be accepted more if the cat did have tiger-like stripes. I'm not totally certain, but pretty sure that patches on a cat wouldn't work with a "tabby" description.

So both an Englishman and an American say that tabby is a breed! Since none oe my dictionaries mentions sucvh a breed, I decided to do a little research, and here is what I found:

http://www.geocities.com/sashachan/tabby.html
http://www.devons.com/tabby.html

So it is not actually a breed, but it is in the genes.

Originally Posted by translations.nm.ru

So both an Englishman and an American say that tabby is a breed!
.

I have NEVER heard of anyone even thinking it was a breed!

That's funny...Yeah, when I was younger I got a Tabby cat.
"What kind of cat do you have?"
"Oh, it's a tabby." Just like with a lot of other things in these forums, it has a lot to do with where you are. Doesn't mean it's right. Just means it was learned. Someone said it, someone else liked it, now everyone picked it up. And it's not like we're so bent on that thing being a "tabby cat." I couldn't care less. Now that I've read this, I'm tellin everyone what it's really called!

По моему Webster's:

tabby: 1) a gray or brown cat with dark stripes; 2) any domestic cat, esp. a female. ... refers to "brindled."

brindled: streaked or spotted with a darker color, said especially of a gray or tawny cow, dog, etc.

And, of course, a reference to a quite esteemed source, who also does not explain what a brindled cat is. You might recognize this, it's 400-year-old English literature:

SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches
First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Unfortunately, after researching this, I see that "brinded" occurs quite often instead of "brindled." I wonder what Shakespeare really wrote.

Maybe I've come a bit late, but as a native speaker of English, I've never really known exactly what a tabby is and could care less. Everyone and their brother has a "tabby." "What sort of cat do you have? Oh, he's a black tab." And so on. Eventually it became one of those things that you simply accept even if you don't really know its definition. Perhaps if I kept cats as pets, I would know more about it. But when someone says "tabby", I think of a warm, soft, fluffy cat. Ahhh....

Probably a bit silly replying to this thread (since It's 2 years old :P) but if I remember correctly, Tabby (or Tabi, the original spelling) was the name of a breed of cat from Egypt.

I don't like cats, they scare me.

Hehehe, yeah they're not everyone's cup of tea. Very intelligent though, but being so independent and having that arrogant / "don't care" looking attitude might put people off.

We've got a male Tabi, and his genitals are still intact so he's quite violent at times

Cats are pretty freaky. I'd blame my irrational fear of the creatures on being attacked by one as a small child (I've got these scars all over my arms that look like a suicide attempt, but were actually the result of my getting too close to a very irritable barn cat), but I've been chomped by dogs too, and I like them, so...

Cats are freaky.

Ouch :S

nasty little bugger

Originally Posted by translations.nm.ru

I run across this word in a book I was reading a few days ago and I am not quite sure what it means. My dictionaries seem to disagree a little about it. Some dictionaries say that a tabby cat is a cat with stripes, period. Other say that it is a cat with stripes or patches or streaks of different color.
So all of them agree that a cat with stripes can be called tabby. What I am interested in is, can you use this word to describe a cat that has no tiger-like stripes, but just spots and patches of a darker color than the rest of its coat?

If the cat is white, orange, and black,

or

white, orange, and brown,

and has random spots and patches like you say, it is called a calico.

A tabby cat looks kind of like this:

http://llizard.crosswinds.net/gifs/snowcat.jpg

It can be mostly striped:

http://pantransit.reptiles.org/images/1 ... rtrait.jpg

http://pantransit.reptiles.org/images/1 ... 24/tia.jpg

http://www.mycathatesyou.com/images/cat ... uincey.jpg

But occasionally they are spotted. They tend to have lighter or white-colored stomachs.

Here's a pic of some calicos:

http://thecalicogirls.com/images/calico ... expage.gif

You know, I think the same kind of situation exists for the word "buttercup." At first I was amazed at the average American's knowledge of botany until I figured out they use that word to refer to any plant with small yellow flowers.