Word.ws English Dictionary

put the cat among the pigeons

put the cat among the pigeons verb: to cause alarm, fuss, or agitation.

Verb

put the cat among the pigeons (third-person singular simple present puts the cat among the pigeons, present participle putting the cat among the pigeons, simple past and past participle put the cat among the pigeons)

  1. (figuratively) To cause alarm, fuss, or agitation.
    • Professor Stephen Hawking put the cat among the pigeons last week with his cheery remarks about comet Machholz-2, which some astronomers believe could be heading our way.1994 September 19, The Times
    • In any event, this professorial detonation, especially coming as it does from hardline Federalist Society constitutional originalists, has set the cat among the Republican pigeons.2023 September 2, Simon Schama, “The real Rino”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2

Forms of put the cat among the pigeons

third-person singular presentputs the cat among the pigeons
present participleputting the cat among the pigeons
past participleput the cat among the pigeons
pastput the cat among the pigeons
alternative formset the cat among the pigeons

Questions about put the cat among the pigeons

What does put the cat among the pigeons mean?
Put the cat among the pigeons means to cause alarm, fuss, or agitation.
What part of speech is put the cat among the pigeons?
Put the cat among the pigeons is a verb.
What is the past tense of put the cat among the pigeons?
The past tense of put the cat among the pigeons is put the cat among the pigeons.

Words near put the cat among the pigeons in the dictionary

  1. put the bottom rail on top
  2. put the brakes on
  3. put the cabosh on
  4. put the cart before the horse
  5. put the case
  6. put the cat among the pigeons
  7. put the change on someone
  8. put the clock back
  9. put the clock forward
  10. put the clocks back
  11. put the cork back in the bottle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put the cat among the pigeons (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-put the cat among the pigeons.ogg.

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