Cat Vocabulary: A Feline Lexicon

That’s because the early-morning visitor was no domestic feline munching on some unlucky rodent.
– Los Angeles Times

It’s designed to warn birds that there’s a predator nearby.
– The New York Times

The danger of overidentifying with animals, particularly carnivores, is that it leads people to expect human behavior of them.
– The New Yorker

Hylla was in her twenties, lithe and lean as a tiger.
– The Son of Neptune

Cats have sharp, retractable (except in the cheetah) claws, and their teeth are adapted for stabbing, anchoring, and cutting.
– Britannica

In most cases, adoption is out of the question for feral cats because they are just too wild to be domesticated.
– The Washington Times

The lissome cheetah, meanwhile, is bullied and often killed by bigger carnivores such as lions.
– Slate

It’s also the most formally inventive: part play, part dance, with supple, catlike movement illustrating recorded dialogue by the playwright Jonathon Young.
– The New York Times

Cats, depending on your point of view, are cute or aloof, predatory or lazy.
– The Washington Post

As the lion pounced, it knocked over a platform that fell and blocked the gate to the cage.
– The Washington Times

I’m sure the kittens were pesky at times, but their mother knows the practice of stalking and pouncing is essential to their survival when they are pushed off on their own, sometime in the next year.
– US Forest Service

Faster and more agile than their bulk would indicate, they can run about 35 miles an hour.
– The New York Times

While the domestic cat has adapted itself in extraordinary fashion to man's customs, it has not altogether lost its wild traits. Often sleek, sleepy, and well-behaved by day, the cat, by night, may become a stealthy and serious predator.
– Texas Parks and Wildlife