Mewings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Thin, plaintive cries made by cats, often when they are hungry, lonely or seeking attention
2. The soft, high-pitched calls that cats give out to signal a need or to draw notice
3. Sustained, wailing sounds produced by cats, typically heard from kittens or from cats in distress

Etymology: "Mewings" is the plural of "mewing", a noun for the thin, plaintive cries of a cat. The base word is onomatopoeic: it imitates the sound itself, the drawn-out "mew" that cats make, with the verb "mew" and its "-ing" form following from that imitation. Because the noun is built on the sound rather than inherited from an older word, its roots are simply the noise a cat makes. The plural "mewings" is used when several such cries are meant, or a series of them. Its tie to the orthodontic term "mewing" is a coincidence of spelling: the orthodontic sense, a method of tongue posture for the mouth, is named after British orthodontists John Mew and his son Michael Mew, and it has nothing to do with the cat sound.

Synonyms: mews, meows, miaows