kitten

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a young domestic cat

   Everyone loves kittens.

2. 2
   verb

   to have kittens

   Our cat kittened again this year.

3. 3
   noun

   A young cat, especially before sexual maturity (reached at about seven months).

   It was supposed to have happened thus: the cat had young kittens, and frequently carried them mice, and other animals its prey, and among the rest a young rat: the kittens, not being hungry, played with it, and when the cat came to give suck to the kittens, the rat likewise sucked her.

4. 4
   noun

   A young rabbit, rat, hedgehog, squirrel, fox, beaver, badger, etc.

   The first move at beaver raising in North Dakota had its starting in the fall of 1874, when a kitten beaver was taken out of Mandan Lake by the writer and given to a little Indian girl who then lived with her guardians at Pretty Point near the present village of Sanger, Oliver county.

5. 5
   noun

   A moth of the genus Furcula.

   Two of these formed cocoons in a manner I have not seen before. They were supplied when full-grown with plenty of rotten willow wood, which I have always found a most suitable material for insects using bark or old wood in forming cocoons such as the kittens, Apatele alni, etc., and most made the usual cycle of cocoons on it.

6. 6
   noun

   A term of endearment, especially for a woman.

   Speak only when spoken to, kitten.

7. 7
   verb

   To give birth to kittens.

   A cat about to kitten, must not be spoken of by its name, but called a witch. (Madagascar.)

Etymology

From Middle English kitoun, kytton, kyton, keton (“kitten”), of obscure origin. Seemingly from, and usually explained as being from, unattested Anglo-Norman *kitoun, *ketun (compare Old French chitoun, cheton, chaton (“kitten”), diminutive of cat, chat (“cat”)); whence Modern French chaton (“kitten”). Similar words of Germanic origin may have reinforced this word; compare English kitling (“kit, kitten”), Low German Kitten (“kitten”), Icelandic kettlingur (“kitten”), Middle English chitte ("whelp, pup", see chit). The idea that kitoun, rather than being of Anglo-Norman origin, was in fact a pur…