rain cats and dogs
verbEtymology Unknown, but see examples of early use in Citations.
1
Idiomatic To rain very heavily.
- ["]Those weather-gaws aren't out for nothing. It'll rain cats and dogs to-morrow." Marigold wondered what weather-gaws were—and then forgot in thinking how interesting it would be in it really rained cats and dogs. Little silk-eared kittens everywhere by the basketful—loads of darling pudgy puppies.1929, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “Marigold Entertains”, in Magic for Marigold, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →OCLC, section 4, page 190:
- Derived terms
- cats and dogs
- Related terms
- come down in stair rods