Word.ws English Dictionary

like a cat on a hot tin roof

like a cat on a hot tin roof prepositional phrase: jumpy, nervous.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (US, colloquial, simile) Jumpy, nervous.

Origin of like a cat on a hot tin roof

A simile developed from the behaviour of a cat observed on a hot tin roof.

Questions about like a cat on a hot tin roof

What does like a cat on a hot tin roof mean?
Like a cat on a hot tin roof means jumpy, nervous.
What part of speech is like a cat on a hot tin roof?
Like a cat on a hot tin roof is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like a cat on a hot tin roof in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a cat on a hot tin roof (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-like a cat on a hot tin roof.ogg.

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