Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The cat of the mountain; the European wildcat.
  • noun In heraldry, this animal when used as a bearing.
  • noun In the United States and Canada: A wildcat; a lynx; any species of the genus Lynx, which contains several large wildcats with short tails, penciled ears, and reddish or reddish-gray coloration, much variegated with lighter and darker markings, as the bay lynx, Lynx rufus, or the Canada lynx, L. canadensis. See cut under Lynx. The cougar, puma, or mountain lion, Felis concolor. See cougar.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) The cougar. Applied also, in some parts of the United States, to the lynx.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A wild animal of the family Felidae, especially cougar, puma or lynx.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun large American feline resembling a lion
  • noun short-tailed wildcats with usually tufted ears; valued for their fur

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for catamountain.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Shortened from catamountain, from cat o' mountain, cat of the mountain.

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Examples

  • A catamount is essentially a wild cat, but they spent five minutes thinking and got a cooler nickname.

    College Mascots: Inspiring to Insipid | Heretical Ideas Magazine 2009

  • And while these recollections press upon us, the flickering shadows of the wood seem to assume the forms of the wild creatures which so lately roamed over these hills, and we are half persuaded that the timid doe or the wily catamount is again drawing near to drink from the fountain at our feet – we hear the crash of a dry branch, or the rustling of leaves, and we start as though expecting to see the painted warrior, armed with flint-headed arrows and tomahawk of stone, gliding through the wood toward us.

    Rural Hours 1887

  • I had often heard old hunters speak of a wild animal, called the catamount, which they allowed had been seen in the Canadian forests during the early settlement of the country.

    The Path of Duty, and Other Stories

  • I had often heard old hunters speak of a wild animal, called the catamount, which they allowed had been seen in the Canadian forests during the early settlement of the country.

    Stories and Sketches Harriet S. Caswell

  • Also known as the catamount, puma, cougar, and Nittany lion

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Jim Noles 2011

  • A catamount is a skeary animal, I will allow, but then it is nothing in the hands of a practysed hunter.

    Pathfinder; or, the inland sea James Fenimore Cooper 1820

  • The cook of the camp, in telling his comrades about the fate of the dog, spoke of the great wildcat as a "catamount," to distinguish him from the common cat of the woods.

    The Watchers of the Trails A Book of Animal Life Charles George Douglas Roberts 1901

  • A man was killed by a "catamount," in this county, some fifty years ago.

    Rural Hours 1887

  • "Oh, now I know; a catamount is a painter, a painter is a leopard or a panther.

    The Settlers in Canada Frederick Marryat 1820

  • "Oh! now I know; a catamount is a painter, a painter is a leopard or a panther.

    The Settlers in Canada Frederick Marryat 1820

Comments

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  • A.k.a mountain lion, cougar, panther, puma, or painter.

    October 10, 2009

  • That's catamount to synonymy!

    October 10, 2009

  • A catamount is essentially a wild cat, but they spent five minutes thinking and got a cooler nickname.

    (Read in the examples)

    March 11, 2011