cat’s meow n.
1. anything exceptional or superlative.
![]() | TAD Lex. (1993) 25: Some party. Some home made hooch. — Gee — I feel like the cat’s meow. | in Zwilling|
![]() | Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 2 May 9/4: Flapper Dictionary duck’s quack – The best thing ever. | |
![]() | Fellow Countrymen (1937) 33: Mira, she’s the cat’s tonsillitis. [Ibid.] 36: I’m going to bring you all kinds of rubber dresses back from New York, and will they be the cat’s meow. | ‘Calico Shoes’ in|
![]() | Enter the Saint 167: I call that the elephant’s tonsils. | |
![]() | N.Y. Age 7 Mar. 7/1: King of Swing [...] From the votes that have reached me up to now...Cab Calloway seems to be the cats meow. | ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in|
, | ![]() | DAS. |
![]() | (con. 1916) Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 176: ‘Say, that’s the cat’s meow!’ he grinned. | |
![]() | Lily on the Dustbin 87: Young people who [...] ‘dress up like a sore thumb’ or ‘the cat’s meow’ are fair game for domestic wits. | |
![]() | (con. 1939) 🌐 Billy Conn was the cat’s meow . | in Sports Illus. June|
![]() | (con. 1933) Big Blowdown (1999) 18: This Chevy, this was the cat’s meow. | |
![]() | in | Vietnam (2006) 106: Go ahead and laugh, but back in ’66 that outfit was the cat’s meow.|
![]() | WordWizard Inc. Feb. 🌐 Other sources list ‘[...] the duck’s quack.’. |
2. a superior person or someone who poses as such.
![]() | in By Himself (1974) 28: So even if you ain’t the pig’s scream that You say You are, You had a shining example to copy from. | |
![]() | Fighting Blood 13: His old man owned the carpet factory here, which seems to make this fathead think he’s the duck’s quack. [Ibid.] 83: The guy which doped that out was the sparrow’s chirp, what? | |
![]() | Wash. Post 25 Jan. SM7: Jargon of the Juveniles Daughter Cat’s meow. | |
, | ![]() | DAS. |
![]() | My Life as a Man (1974) 293: Peter Tarnopol, you are the cat’s meow. | |
![]() | Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 104: I thought I was the cat’s meow when I got my first pair of platforms. | |
![]() | (con. 1963) November Road 239: ‘You should see how she looks at you. She thinks you’re the cat’s meow’. |