Word.ws English Dictionary

J-cat

J-cat noun: a mentally unstable inmate.

Noun

J-cat (plural J-cats)

  1. (US, slang) A mentally unstable inmate.
    • Fuckers never see the light of day. Nevada Fucking Prisneyland, O.G.! Homos, snitches, Chomos, straight-up J-Cats, and children all P.C.'d up together, scandalous shit, dawg!2003, Jimmy Lerner, You Got Nothing Coming: Notes from a Prison Fish, page 77
    • Some J-CATs didn't even take medication, meaning they white-knuckle this lifestyle, possibly unaware of their deviation from reality and normality.2023, Justin Cook, Infectious Injustice
  2. (slang) One who behaves in an erratic or overly excited manner.

Forms of J-cat

pluralJ-cats
alternative formj-cat
alternative formjaycat
alternative formCat-J

Origin of J-cat

Short for J-Category (also Category-J), a former designation used for mentally ill prisoners in the California State Prison System.

Questions about J-cat

What does J-cat mean?
J-cat means a mentally unstable inmate.
What part of speech is J-cat?
J-cat is a noun.
What is the plural of J-cat?
The plural of J-cat is J-cats.

Words near J-cat in the dictionary

  1. j-blogs
  2. J-box
  3. J-boxes
  4. J-card
  5. J-cards
  6. J-cat
  7. J-cats
  8. J-cloth
  9. J-cloths
  10. J-core
  11. J-curve

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: J-cat (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: “J-cat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/j-cat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.