kitty

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a pool of money contributed by a group; informally, a kitten or cat

   Everyone chipped in to the kitty for the office party.

Simplified etymology

Kitty as a pet name for a cat is a form of kitten, which ultimately comes from Old French chitoun, a pet form of chat, “cat.” The unrelated gambling sense developed from a northern English use of kitty for a prison and, by the late nineteenth century, came to denote the common pool of staked money.

In the sense of a pool of money, perhaps from kit ('set, collection'); in the sense of a cat, a pet form of kitten with the diminutive suffix -y.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary