tabby
1
1.9
- noun
- /ˈtæbi/
- Archaic
:
gata
- Shadow curls napping at my feet, and Falstaff, the old yellow tabby, has taken up residence in my lap, purring while I stroke his broad, amber back.
- tabby cat
- an old tabby
Examples
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The P. stands for Percival, and so we call him Percy, a dignified and highly affectionate tabby.
Blog text (23) -
My friend adopted a lovely tabby cat that loves to play with yarn.
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-Come here, my little tabby cat.
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My orange tabby and my dog are both missing and I need your help.
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Unbuttoning the top stud of his shirt, he shooed away the tabby cat that tried to rub against his legs.
Fiction book (1990) -
The book further enlightens us that of all the breeds—crossbred, short-haired, long-haired, of every imaginable color—the tabby is the only basic cat.
Fiction book (1999) -
The tabby cat curled up on the windowsill, soaking in the sun.
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Every evening, the stray tabby cat visits our porch for food.
Synonyms
Compounds
Surface Forms
Etymology
Tabby originally named a kind of silk with a wavy, 'watered' pattern and comes from an old Arabic word attabiya. Because that cloth pattern looked like the stripes on some cats, people started to call striped cats tabby, and over time the word also came to mean a female cat.