Did someone use the phrase ''like a cat on a hot tin roof' and you’re wondering what it means? In this article, we’ll take a look at the meaning, origin, examples, and more.
‘Like a cat on a hot tin roof’ means to be nervous, jumpy, skittish, or agitated.
Though the phrase was made particularly famous by the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, variations of the expression have actually been around for hundreds of years.
An earlier version of the phrase was ‘like a cat on hot bricks’ and referred to the way that a cat acts when walking on a roof on a hot day.
An even earlier version shows up in the work of John Ray, an English naturalist, and theologian that lived between 1627 and 1705. In his A Collection of English Proverbs from 1678, we find the phrase ‘to go like a cat upon a hot bake stone.’ A baked stone is a slate or a flat stone that would be used to bake cakes in the oven.
We find the phrase using ‘Blackstone’ as the surface a cat is walking on in a Sporting Magazine from 1820 in an article titled A New System of Shoeing Horses:
The horse could not endure the concussion upon the roads, became sore in his heels and frogs, and went, as Bracken has it, ‘like a cat upon a backstone.’
In Passages from the Diary of the Late Dolly Duster, we find the earliest instances of the ‘hot bricks’ version of the phrase. Published in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country in 1838, we find the following sentence:
“…something after the fashion of a cat on hot bricks picked his way as well as he could towards the door.”
When it comes to ‘like a cat on a hot tin roof’ in its specific wording, one of the earliest examples shows up in Troop Number 13 Wins Big Battle: Boy Scouts of the City Collect Ten Tons of Paper and Are Still Busy, which was published in June 1921 in the Daily Gazette-Times:
All day long Scout Executive Cornwell was kept busy as a cat on a hot tin roof weighing out bundles of paper which had been collected by the indefatigable scouts.
Of course, we can’t rightfully discuss this phrase without touching upon the famous play by Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. First performed in 1955, the dialogue of the play includes a number of allusions to the expression:
Margaret: Y’know what I feel like, Brick?
I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof!
– Brick: Then jump off the roof, jump off it, cats can jump off roofs and land on their four feet uninjured!
– Margaret: Oh, yes!
– Brick: Do it!—fo’ God’s sake, do it…
– Margaret: Do what?
– Brick: Take a lover!
– Margaret: I can’t see a man but you! Even with my eyes closed, I just see you! Why don’t you get ugly, Brick, why don’t you please get fat or ugly or something so I could stand it?
[…]
– Brick: Maggie, I wouldn’t divorce you for being unfaithful or anything else. Don’t you know that? Hell. I’d be relieved to know that you’d found yourself a lover.
– Margaret: Well, I’m taking no chances. No, I’d rather stay on this hot tin roof.
– Brick: A hot tin roof’s ’n uncomfo’table place t’ stay on…
Interestingly, there is also a French equivalent of the same phrase. The literal translation is ‘to be on blazing coals,’ which refers to the test of innocence or guilt that was once used during medieval times.
How would this expression be used in a sentence? Let’s take a look at some examples:
What other words and phrases have a similar meaning to this idiom?
Here are some options:
‘Like a cat on a hot tin roof’ is a great expression to use when you want to describe someone as jumpy or nervous. Though the phrase has a number of different variations, the Tennessee Williams play by the same name solidified the 'hot tin roof version' as the most well-known modern version of the expression.
Are you ready to learn more English phrases and expand your vocabulary? Be sure to check out our idioms blog for idioms, expressions, sayings, and more!
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