rain cats and dogs

Idioms  

1. Also, rain buckets. Rain very heavily, as in It was raining cats and dogs so I couldn't walk to the store, or It's been raining buckets all day. The precise allusion in the first term, which dates from the mid-1600s, has been lost, but it probably refers to gutters overflowing with debris that included sewage, garbage, and dead animals. Richard Brome used a version of this idiom in his play The City Wit (c. 1652), where a character pretending a knowledge of Latin translates wholly by ear, “Regna bitque /and it shall rain, Dogmata Polla Sophon /dogs and polecats and so forth.” The variant presumably alludes to rain heavy enough to fill pails.

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Example Sentences

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rain cats and dogs

It didn’t rain cats and dogs; it rained cows and horses … lions and tigers … boy, it rained elephants and giraffes!

From "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs" by Betty G. Birney

Let it rain cats and dogs, if it wants to.

From Si Klegg, Book 2 (of 6) Thru The Stone River Campaign And In Winter Quarters At Murfreesboro by John McElroy

It is very pleasant to walk there with a good catalogue, and make it rain cats and dogs outside.

From Peter Ibbetson by George Du Maurier

Then I'll go;" and Carry picked up a box with a little tea-set in it, and started off, saying: "Do you believe it'll rain cats and dogs and pitchforks, grandma?

From St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 by Mary Mapes Dodge

Rain?" said Carry, "I don't mind rain, Jake; but I don't like it to rain cats and dogs when they fight.

From St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 by Mary Mapes Dodge