Word.ws English Dictionary

cat around

cat around verb: to engage in sex with various partners; to sleep around; to cheat on a sexual partner.

Verb

cat around (third-person singular simple present cats around, present participle catting around, simple past and past participle catted around)

  1. (intransitive, slang) To engage in sex with various partners; to sleep around; to cheat on a sexual partner.
    • Mrs S. was convinced that any girl who visited a boy in his bedsitter after 10 p.m. was up to no good. 'If you boys want to cat around, okay, but you're not going to do it under my roof! This is a respectable house!' she was fond of saying whenever she suspected we were trying to put one across her...1998, Francis Hugh De Souza, No. 3, Templeton Place, page 171
    • Before then, I catted around, ever since the urge came to me. I learned blond hair, blue eyes, an innocent look works with women. I had many girls. I stayed out to all hours. Mother never cared.2004, Dale Maharidge, Michael Williamson, And their children after them, page 133
    Synonyms:
    alley cat
  2. (US, intransitive, slang) To wander; to waste time or idle.

Synonyms of cat around

Forms of cat around

third-person singular presentcats around
present participlecatting around
past participlecatted around
pastcatted around

Origin of cat around

Perhaps referring to the behavior of a cat in heat.

Questions about cat around

What does cat around mean?
Cat around means to engage in sex with various partners; to sleep around; to cheat on a sexual partner.
What part of speech is cat around?
Cat around is a verb.
What is the past tense of cat around?
The past tense of cat around is catted around.

Words near cat around in the dictionary

  1. cat and kitten sneaking
  2. cat and mouse
  3. cat and moused
  4. cat and mouses
  5. cat and mousing
  6. cat around
  7. cat bath
  8. cat baths
  9. cat bear
  10. cat bears
  11. cat bird

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cat around (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-cat around.ogg.

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