Word.ws English Dictionary

like a cat in a strange garret

like a cat in a strange garret prepositional phrase: having a feeling of uncertainty and misapprehension due to being in an unfamiliar situation.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (US, simile) Having a feeling of uncertainty and misapprehension due to being in an unfamiliar situation.
    • Well, mass'r, I can't say for Lucinda and Dinah, but I should feel like a cat in a strange garret.1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh....
    • Mothers cannot conveniently leave home to get about, and fathers, to use their own expression, "feel like a cat in a strange garret," when screwed up in one of the seats to the school house.1862 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Vermont Board of Education

Questions about like a cat in a strange garret

What does like a cat in a strange garret mean?
Like a cat in a strange garret means having a feeling of uncertainty and misapprehension due to being in an unfamiliar situation.
What part of speech is like a cat in a strange garret?
Like a cat in a strange garret is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like a cat in a strange garret in the dictionary

  1. like a bug to a zapper
  2. like a bull at a gate
  3. like a bull in a china shop
  4. like a bulldog with a bone
  5. like a bump on a log
  6. like a cat in a strange garret
  7. like a cat on a hot tin roof
  8. like a champ
  9. like a charm
  10. like a chicken on a June bug
  11. like a chicken with its head cut off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a cat in a strange garret (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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