Raining cats and dogs

[Douglas G. Wilson]

There's a lot of nonsense on the Web, of course. Quinion's site (among a
few others) is generally reasonable, IMHO:

http://www.quinion.com/words/

When I looked into this one some time ago, I arrived at the conclusion that
the "animal corpses in the gutters" etymology-theory was as good as any.

Farmer and Henley (1891) quote Swift (1710): "Now from all parts the
swelling kennels flow, And bear their trophies with them as they go ...
Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and
turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood."

The idea I think is that a heavy rain will lift even large pieces of
garbage/debris -- such as animal corpses -- not that the animals were
necessarily actually killed by the rain (although newborn
puppies/kittens/etc. might have been).

-- Doug Wilson