calico cat
1
1.3
- noun
- /ˈkælɪkoʊ kæt/
:
gato calico
- A calico cat skitters out of the kitchen, spots Tully, panics, and runs upstairs.
- an old calico cat
I was still young, like in in middle school, got this little calico cat.
- I was still young, like in in middle school, got this little calico cat.
Examples
-
We adopted a calico cat from the shelter, and her coat is filled with vibrant patches of color.
-
We have one calico cat.
Blog text (21) -
She held a calico cat and a saucer of cream.
Fiction book (1995) -
I know they aren't true... but I remember... I tell myself it could just as well be a white calico cat that is walking across my path... and if I walk under a ladder, the worst that could happen is that my hair would get messed up.
Blog text (32) -
There's this calico cat who sits on the fence making faces because he's mute.
Fiction book (2000) -
I sat there and spotted squirrels, hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, and a belied calico cat that ran by, stopped, saw me, looked terribly confused in the way cats do, and then went on.
Fiction book (2001) -
But there’s nothing so interesting as a toaster or a calico cat in this pretentious act of foppish vanity.
Blog text (19) -
The calico cat lounged in the sun, its fur a beautiful mix of black, orange, and white.
-
Every morning, the calico cat waits by the door for its owner to come home.
Synonyms
4
1.9
A cat with patches of white, black, and orange fur
How Multicolored
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward adjective+noun composition: 'calico' denotes a particular multicolored coat pattern and 'cat' names the animal, so 'calico cat' simply means a cat with a calico coat. The meaning is fully predictable from the constituents and follows a common cross-linguistic modifier+noun pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both words would understand it.
Etymology
Calico cat gets its name from a colorful cloth called calico that had mixed bright patterns. Because a calico cat's fur shows black, white and orange 'patches', people began to call cats with that look calico cats, so the name now means a cat with patches of color.