⛵ “raining cats and dogs”

What it means: Raining very heavily.

“We cancelled the picnic — it was raining cats and dogs.”

Where it comes from

Printed from at least 1638 (Balthasar Grimmelshausen in English) and used by Swift; why cats and dogs, nobody has proved — the popular "animals fell from thatched roofs" story is a modern invention without evidence.

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on cloud ninein the same boatweather the storma breezetake the wind out of someone’s sails

More phrases, including proverbs from dozens of languages, at Proverbs of the World.