Raining cats and dogs

[ANNE V. GILBERT]

Patti:

> I know this has been addressed before as part of a discussion on folk
> etymology, but is there any clear source or origin for the phrase "raining
> cats and dogs"?  On the Internet, I found lots of possibilities, including
> mythological origins, but no one seemed to be very certain of where the
> phrase may have come from.  And I don't buy the suggestion that dogs and
> cats would drown in a sudden rain and float down the streets, making it
look
> as if they had fallen from the sky-- dogs and cats can usually get away
from
> rain pretty quickly if they want to.

I don't know just where I read this(but it was fairly recently), but
"raining cats and dogs" is supposed to have come from the term
"catadoxis"(meaning contrary to nature, or something like that).  "Folk
pronunciation" supposedly turned it into "cats and dogs".  Does anybody else
have any good ideas on this?
Anne g


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