cat-and-dog
Americanadjective
-
continuously or unceasingly vicious and destructive.
cat-and-dog competition.
-
Slang. (of a security) highly speculative and of questionable value.
Etymology
Origin of cat-and-dog
First recorded in 1570–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“If you want to see a cat-and-dog fight, just let someone make a move on us,” Mr. Spoor said that June.
From Washington Post
Now they lead a cat-and-dog life, Stimulating in the harassed life of the King because of his fellow feeling for poor Ubum.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
There was no time to change into better clothes, so I pulled my big wool coat over my cat-and-dog pajamas, and we tiptoed out of the house, careful not to make too much sound.
From "The Science of Breakable Things" by Tae Keller
![]()
And for the first six years they led a regular cat-and-dog life.
From Glories of Spain by Charles W. (William) Wood
But of a sudden Jones and his wife have fallen out, and there is for awhile in Jones Hall a cat-and-dog life that may end—in one hardly dare to surmise what calamity.
From North America — Volume 1 by Anthony Trollope
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.