definitions

like a cat on hot bricks

Also, like a cat on a hot tin roof. Restless or skittish, unable to remain still, as in Nervous about the lecture he had to give, David was like a cat on hot bricks. The first expression replaced a still earlier one, like a cat on a hot bake-stone, which appeared in John Ray's Proverbs (1678). The second was popularized as the title of Tennessee Williams's play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).

RELATED CONTENT

Wearing A Cat On Your Head: Animal Idioms From Around The WorldDo you move at a snail’s pace, or get ants in your pants when it’s raining cats and dogs? You know those sayings, but here are a few from around the world.
READ MORE
You Can’t Be A “Cat Lady” Without These WordsEmbrace that love of cats by discarding the pejorative connotations—and expand your feline vocabulary as we build the leading Cat Lady Dictionary together.
READ MORE

Nearby words

likable, likasi, like, like a bat out of hell, like a bump on a log, like a cat on hot bricks, like a champ, like a chicken with its head cut off, like a drowned rat, like a fish out of water, like a house afire
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.