Definition of grimalkin
: a domestic cat;
especially
: an old female cat
- Trending Now: More Trending:
- asylum insubordinate promulgate epochal clemency
- ALL
What's Trending Now
More Trending Words
grimalkin was our Word of the Day on 04/18/2017. Hear the podcast!
Theme music by Joshua Stamper ©2006 New Jerusalem Music/ASCAP
Did You Know?
In the opening scene of Macbeth, one of the three witches planning to meet with Macbeth suddenly announces, "I come, Graymalkin." The witch is responding to the summons of her familiar, or guardian spirit, which is embodied in the form of a cat. Shakespeare's "graymalkin" literally means "gray cat." The "gray" is of course the color; the "malkin" was a nickname for Matilda or Maud that came to be used in dialect as a general name for a cat (and sometimes a hare). By the 1630s, "graymalkin" had been altered to the modern spelling "grimalkin."
Origin and Etymology of grimalkin
gray + malkin
Learn More about grimalkin
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up grimalkin? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
