cat < ?

[David L. White]

> From what I gather, feles was originally applied to a ferret, mongoose or
> other type of weasel. I like your ailouros etymology a lot more

    A truly minor point ...
    Mongooses (-geese?) are viverrids, not mustelids, and only one type of
viverrid, the genet (not mongoose) of Iberia (spreading recently to France
and even western Germany), occurs in Europe.  For the Romans to call a
mongoose a cat would have been more or less as for us to call skunks
'polecats' or a kind of racoon 'ringtail cats'.   Not that that stops us.
Speaking of deplorable, or understandable, vagueness in terms for animal, it
is within the realm of possibility the word for 'fox' and 'wolf' were not
originally distinguished, which would explain a few things.

Dr. David L. White