英语词汇raining cats and dogs的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

raining cats and dogs. A literal explanation for raining cats and dogs is that during heavy rains in 17th-century England some city streets became raging rivers of filth carrying many dead cats and dogs. The first printed use of the phrase does date to the 17th century, when English playwright Richard Brome wrote in The City Witt (1652): “It shall rain dogs and polecats.” His use of “polecats” certainly suggests a less literal explana- tion, but no better theory has been offered. Other conjectures are that the hyperbole comes from a Greek saying, similar in sound, meaning “an unlikely occurrence,” and that the phrase derives from a rare French word, catadoupe (“a waterfall”), which sounds a little like cats and dogs. It could also be that the expression was inspired by the fact that cats and dogs were closely associated with the rain and wind in Northern mythol- ogy, dogs often being pictured as the attendants of Odin, the storm god, while cats were believed to cause storms. Similar colloquial expressions include it’s raining pitchforks, darning needles, hammer handles, and chicken coops. See fishfall.

词汇	raining cats and dogs
词源	raining cats and dogs. A literal explanation for raining cats and dogs is that during heavy rains in 17th-century England some city streets became raging rivers of filth carrying many dead cats and dogs. The first printed use of the phrase does date to the 17th century, when English playwright Richard Brome wrote in The City Witt (1652): “It shall rain dogs and polecats.” His use of “polecats” certainly suggests a less literal explana- tion, but no better theory has been offered. Other conjectures are that the hyperbole comes from a Greek saying, similar in sound, meaning “an unlikely occurrence,” and that the phrase derives from a rare French word, catadoupe (“a waterfall”), which sounds a little like cats and dogs. It could also be that the expression was inspired by the fact that cats and dogs were closely associated with the rain and wind in Northern mythol- ogy, dogs often being pictured as the attendants of Odin, the storm god, while cats were believed to cause storms. Similar colloquial expressions include it’s raining pitchforks, darning needles, hammer handles, and chicken coops. See fishfall.
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