Only The Best Of The Beasts

 

A Lovely Intrepid Friend

Long May He Run!

What a fine fellow he,

and all his kin are!

*🤍*

I began to wonder about the word tabby.

So, I checked.

tabby (n.)

1630s, "silken stuff; striped silk taffeta" (tabbies was a general name for watered silk), from French tabis "a rich, watered silk" (originally striped), earlier atabis (14c.), via Mediterranean languages from Arabic 'attabi, from 'Attabiyah, a neighborhood of Baghdad where such cloth was made. The place is said to be named for prince 'Attab of the Omayyad dynasty.

As an adjective from 1630s, "made of tabby;" by 1660s as "resembling tabby," hence tabby cat, one with a striped coat, attested from 1690s. The shortened form tabby for the cat is attested by 1774. "The wild original of the domestic cat is always of such coloration" [Century Dictionary].

In the shifted sense of "female cat" (1826) it was alliteratively paired with (and distinguished from) Tom (see tomcat). The use also might have been suggested by Tabby, a pet form of the fem. proper name Tabitha, which also was late 18c. slang for "spiteful spinster, difficult old woman" (as in Tabbyhood "condition of being an old maid," 1793).

Of course I have loved all of my cats, just about as much as it is possible to love a cat, but, there was one who was special. Of course, my imperious Henry. 

 Of course all cat stories are welcomed and in fact, desired!