hellcat

C2+ Topic:People & Society

Also spelled hell-cat

US /ˈhɛlˌkæt/ UK /ˈhɛlˌkæt/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a spiteful, violent-tempered woman; a fury

She turned into a hellcat the moment her plans were crossed.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a spiteful,... shrew viragotermagantfury harpyspitfire

Word family

Related forms hell cat

Etymology

A compound of hell and cat, an early seventeenth-century term joining the infernal connotation of hell with the proverbial spitting fierceness of a cat.

hell Old English catt Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# hellcat

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈhɛlˌkæt/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈhɛlˌkæt/

## Meanings
1. a spiteful, violent-tempered woman; a fury

## Examples
- She turned into a hellcat the moment her plans were crossed.

## Synonyms
- shrew
- virago
- termagant
- fury
- harpy
- spitfire

## Related Forms
- hell
- cat

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: hell
- Root: catt

## Etymology
A compound of hell and cat, an early seventeenth-century term joining the infernal connotation of hell with the proverbial spitting fierceness of a cat.

## AI Etymology
hellcat is a compound of hell and cat, an early seventeenth-century term joining the infernal connotation of hell with the proverbial spitting fierceness of a cat. Morphologically, the word is best read through the components named in the history, with the modern spelling preserving a compound structure rather than a single unanalyzable stem. In present English, the noun sense is "a spiteful, violent-tempered woman; a fury", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as hell and cat. Its semantic neighborhood includes shrew, virago, termagant, and fury, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Old English hell and Old English catt.

## Topics
- People & Society

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