Catling

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈkætlɪŋ/

Definitions

1. A diminutive surgical knife characterized by its slender, curved blade used for detailed tissue manipulation in medical operations
2. A small specialized knife with a curved blade employed in surgery for delicate tissue work, while also referring to a juvenile feline
3. A narrow, curved blade utensil used in surgical procedures for precise tissue cutting ; a feline animal in its early stage of life, typically small and playful

Etymology: The "catling" that means a surgical knife is probably not the same word as the one built from "cat" and the diminutive suffix "-ling". That suffix, found in words like "duckling" and "gosling", marks a small creature, so the animal sense is the transparent one: a little cat, or a kitten. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the surgical sense may be an independent word, which means the blade and the kitten share a sound by coincidence rather than by descent. The suffix itself is old and productive in English, and the same pattern gives "kitling" and the plant name "catkin", a term for the soft, cat-tailed flower cluster on willows and hazels. The surgical knife, by contrast, is not explained by these relatives. Its tie to "cat" is therefore unclear, and no firm account of how it came to be named is available.