meow
Americannoun
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the characteristic sound a cat makes.
-
a spiteful or catty remark.
verb (used without object)
-
to make the sound of a cat.
-
to make a spiteful or catty remark.
verb
interjection
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
meowsimple
-
meowssimple
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have meowedperfect
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has meowedperfect
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am meowingprogressive
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are meowingprogressive
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is meowingprogressive
-
have been meowingperfect progressive
-
has been meowingperfect progressive
Past
-
meowedsimple
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had meowedperfect
-
was meowingprogressive
-
were meowingprogressive
-
had been meowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of meow
First recorded in 1870–75; imitative
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.
See Examples For:
They examined vocalizations from both domestic and wild cats and found that domestication has especially increased how much a cat's meow can vary.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 11, 2026
He would eat and then meow to leave.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2025
"She's super tiny, her breath smells so bad, and she doesn't have a meow," the singer dotes.
From BBC ● Jan. 19, 2025
What is the meaning of a cat’s meow that grows louder and louder?
From New York Times ● Feb. 29, 2024
Then he lets out a surprisingly strong mustard-colored meow and settles back into his mother’s warmth.
From "A Mango-Shaped Space" by Wendy Mass
This behavioral flexibility showed up clearly in the data, with meows displaying much greater variation within the same individual cat.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 11, 2026
Other books showed a warmer, more playful side, such as in “Bark, George,” about a dog that meows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2025
Then, too soon after dawn, her demeanor abruptly changes: She bites my hands, legs, and neck, and meows in my face with a force that can only be described as belligerent.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2023
Household cats are quite vocal to their human companions, using different meows to communicate different messages.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2023
I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange, like a mango in different seasons.
From "A Mango-Shaped Space" by Wendy Mass
Estuardo Mazariegos, who is running to replace Curren Price in a South L.A. district, meowed throughout the game, as he was playing a purple-striped humanoid cat named “Nine Lives E.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2026
Upon seeing me, Momo meowed and then purred.
From New York Times ● Aug. 29, 2022
“I thought I heard a meow, and I thought my mind’s playing tricks on me so I hollered his name out, and he meowed again,” Gibson said.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 22, 2021
Throughout the summer, it stretched awake in the morning, meowed at passersby during rush hour and curled into a sleepy ball after midnight.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 3, 2021
You could see Mrs. Wheeler really perk up her ears at that, so Trotter meowed again.
From "Doing Time Online" by Jan Siebold
In the more upmarket north of Tehran, many residents appeared to have left, with the meowing of cats and birdsong replacing the usual din of traffic jams.
From Barron's ● Mar. 3, 2026
The low frequency portion of the whinny comes from vocal fold vibration, much like a person singing or a cat meowing.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 25, 2026
A cat meowing for Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Peyton Manning chucking Bud Light beers to patrons in a bar and Kris Jenner stacking Oreo cookies.
From New York Times ● Feb. 6, 2024
The new experiment instead suggests that purring, like meowing and hissing, is a passive phenomenon that plays out automatically after cats’ brains provide the initial signal to purr, the researchers conclude.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 3, 2023
Slowly, my left hand patting Schwarz to encourage a hiatus in her meowing, I worked the top off my drum with my right hand.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
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.
