Citations:rain cats and dogs

English citations of rain cats and dogs

Etymology

• 1629-1632, Richard Brome, The City Wit, Act IIII, Scene I.

  Regnabitque , and it shall raine / Dogmata Polla Sophon , Dogs and Polecats, and so forth.

• 1710, Jonathan Swift, A Description of a City Shower

  Sweeping from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood; / Drown’d puppies, stinking sprats, all drench’d in mud, / Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.

• 1738, Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (Eric Partridge, editor, 1963), page 155

  Nay, I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain Cats and Dogs. But, pray stay, Sir John, you'll be Time enough to go to Bed by candle-light.