Favorite English Idiom: It’s Raining Cats And Dogs

 

“It’s raining cats dandy dogs.” was the first idiom that I’ve learnt throughout my English-learning journey. It was 4 years back, at the moment I memorized it through a kids magazine called Mặt Trời Nhỏ.

HISTORY:

The idiom first appeared in the 1651 collection of poems Olor Iscanus, written in an older root form as “dogs and cats rained in shower, in describing how these pets’s fur were soaked in downpours, as they were lying lazily on rooftops. For generations, poems and actings, the phrase soon being modified and turned out to “it’s raining cats and dogs”. Hence, the meaning of it is heavy downpour. For instance: I prefer to stay home today, it’s raining cats and dogs.

However, there were other beliefs too. Back to the 17th century, people in across Britain were throwing waste from windows if their households. As a result, the was pretty messy. This directly affect animals living nearby, making many of them couldn’t adapt and died on those pavements as well. Sadly, no one took responsible for all of those waste so when a big rain came, it washed all away, including those poor creatures. That is the moment that “it’s raining cats and dogs” was born.

Other forms of the idiom:

It shall rain dogs and polecats.- comedy City Witt in 1652.

Rain cats and dogs.-Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation,”- satire by Jonathan Swift in 1738.

Raining cats and dogs.- “City Shower” poem in 1710.

Synonym: 

It’s raining buckets out there!

It’s raining pitchforks.

To rain stair rods

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