Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A hairy aromatic perennial herb (Nepeta cataria) in the mint family, native to Eurasia and containing an aromatic oil to which cats are strongly attracted.
  • noun Any of various other mostly aromatic plants of the genus Nepeta, cultivated for their ornamental foliage and clusters of blue, lavender, or white flowers.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as catmint.

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

  • noun (Bot.) A well-know plant of the genus Nepeta (Nepeta Cataria), somewhat like mint, having a string scent, and sometimes used in medicine. It is so called because cats have a peculiar fondness for it.

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

  • noun botany Any of the about 250 species of flowering plant of the genus Nepeta, family Lamiaceae, certain of which are said to have medicinal qualities.
  • noun Nepeta cataria and Nepeta grandiflora (and perhaps other species), which are well-known for causing an apparently harmless pheromone-based intoxication among certain cats.

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

  • noun hairy aromatic perennial herb having whorls of small white purple-spotted flowers in a terminal spike; used in the past as a domestic remedy; strongly attractive to cats

Etymologies

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

[cat + nip, catnip (variant of nep, from Middle English nept, nep, from Old English nepte, from Latin nepeta, aromatic herb, perhaps of Etruscan origin).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compound of cat + Middle English nep, from Old English nepte, from Latin nepeta.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word catnip.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.