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A meow or miaow is a cat vocalization. ''Meows'' may have diverse tones and are sometimes chattered, murmured or whispered. Adult cats rarely meow to each other, so an adult cat meowing to
human being Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedality, bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex Human brain, brain. This has enabled the development of ad ...
s is probably a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens: a call for attention. The meow can be assertive, plaintive, friendly, bold, welcoming, attention-soliciting, demanding, or complaining. It can even be silent, where the cat opens its mouth but does not vocalize. Just as humans may verbalize exhaustively when they are happy, so can cats. According to ''
The Purrington Post Images and videos of domestic cats make up some of the most viewed content on the World Wide Web, particularly image macros in the form of lolcats. ThoughtCatalog has described cats as the "unofficial mascot of the Internet". The subject has ...
'', a chatty cat is likely happy too. A mew is a high-pitched meow often produced by kittens. It is apparently used to solicit attention from the kitten's mother, and adult cats may use it as well. The mew is similar to what is described in Brown et al. 1978 as an isolation call. By around three to four weeks of age kittens do not mew when at least one littermate is present, and at four to five months of age kittens stop mewing altogether.


Spelling

In
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
, the spelling "meow" was first used in 1842. Before that, the word could be spelled "miaow", "miau", or "meaw". Of any variant, the earliest attestation of a cat's cry in
Early Modern English Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...
is from the 1630s.


Language differences

The following table lists the onomatopoeic word for the "miau" or "meow" sound in various languages. In some languages (such as Chinese , ', and Thai , '), the vocalization became the name of the animal itself.


See also

*
Cat communication Cats need to communicate with each other for bonding, and relating with each other; they need to collaborate, play, and share resources. When they communicate with people, they do so to get what they need or want, such as food, affection, or p ...
*
Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias Because of the nature of onomatopoeia, there are many words which show a similar pronunciation in the languages of the world. The following is a list of some conventional examples: Human sounds Consuming food or drink Bodily functions and ...
*
Devocalization Devocalization (also known as ventriculocordectomy or vocal cordectomy and when performed on dogs is commonly known as debarking or bark softening) is a surgical procedure performed on dogs and cats, where tissue is removed from the animal's voca ...
*
Jingle Cats ''Jingle Cats'' and its follow-up ''Jingle Dogs'' are a series of Christmas novelty song albums from producer Mike Spalla. A third series was released in 1997 titled ''Jingle Babies''. ''Jingle Cats'' and ''Jingle Dogs'' were released as albums ...
* ''
Meow the Jewels ''Meow the Jewels'' is a remix album by American hip hop duo Run the Jewels. It was released on September 25, 2015, by Mass Appeal Records and RBC Records. The album, a remix of the duo's original album ''Run the Jewels 2'', has all instrumental ...
'', a hip-hop album by Run the Jewels with all instrumentals replaced with meowing *
Miao (disambiguation) Miao may refer to: * Miao people, linguistically and culturally related group of people, recognized as such by the government of the People's Republic of China * Miao script or Pollard script, writing system used for Miao languages * Miao (Unicode ...


References

Animal sounds Cat behavior Onomatopoeia {{cat-stub