Word.ws English Dictionary

cat-and-moused

cat-and-moused is the simple past and past participle of cat-and-mouse.

Meaning of cat-and-mouse

Verb

cat-and-mouse (third-person singular simple present cat-and-mouses, present participle cat-and-mousing, simple past and past participle cat-and-moused)

  1. (intransitive) To mutually monitor and challenge each other in an attempt to gain advantage.
    • The Cinque Ports' navy had torn up and down the Channel harassing any marauding French; smugglers had cat-and-moused with revenue men over the marshes, into the woods.1975, Elizabeth Bowen, Pictures and conversations, page 26
  2. (transitive) To toy with (one's victim).
    • But previously it has only cat-and-moused him, trying to achieve the delicate balance of injuring him and yet not having to eat him alive, he then being too big in popularity to swallow.1955, The New Yorker - Volume 30, Part 5, page 197

See all 3 meanings of cat-and-mouse

Questions about cat-and-moused

What is cat-and-moused the simple past and past participle of?
Cat-and-moused is the simple past and past participle of cat-and-mouse.

Words near cat-and-moused in the dictionary

  1. cat's-paws
  2. cat-
  3. cat-a-mountain
  4. cat-a-mountains
  5. cat-and-mouse
  6. cat-and-moused
  7. cat-and-mouses
  8. cat-and-mousing
  9. cat-bath
  10. cat-baths
  11. cat-bird

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cat-and-moused (page history and authors); cat-and-mouse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cat-and-moused.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cat-and-moused. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.