My friend and colleague Clifford recently forwarded to me a list of words, each of which denotes a group of cats: clowder, cluster, clutter, colony, glorying, destruction (for wild cats), and pounce. I have heard of all of them used in relation to cats, except for glorying. And praise glory to Clifford for tipping me off to the perfect word for describing my feline group at home.
Naturally I needed to check Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary to learn whether there is a sanctioned context for cats vis-à-vis the word “glorying.” My trusty dictionary cites glorying only as a verb, used with in, and meaning “to rejoice proudly.” So, who is doing “the glorying” here: the original mama kitty who gave birth to her litter, or this Cat Lady, who became the de facto mother of ten cats?
Sometimes I still wonder, too, how I, working as a solitary editor by day, became the human hub of a cat colony. I suppose I shouldn’t clutter my mind by confusing love and logic.
Query of the Day: Which word do you prefer to describe a group of cats?
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Here is the reference for "glorying":
ReplyDeletehttp://dictionary.reference.com/writing/styleguide/animal.html
and the much less reliable Wikipedia lists "snuggle," which I think is perfect!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names#cite_note-oxford-1