grimalkin

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 21, 2010 is: grimalkin • \grih-MAWL-kin\ • noun : a domestic cat; especially : an old female cat Examples: Maizy, the family grimalkin, wasn't as fast as she used to be, but she was still very good at catching mice. Did you know? In the opening scene of Macbeth, one of the three witches planning to meet with Macbeth suddenly announces, "I come, Graymalkin." The witch is responding to the summons of her familiar, or guardian spirit, which is embodied in the form of a cat. Shakespeare's "graymalkin" literally means "gray cat." The "gray" is of course the color; the "malkin" was a nickname for Matilda or Maud that came to be used in dialect as a general name for a cat (and sometimes a hare). By the 1630s, "graymalkin" had been altered to the modern spelling "grimalkin." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.