Catfight

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fight between cats.

    "The caterwauling from the catfight in the back yard was awful; I couldn't get to sleep until it was over."

  2. 2
    A fight or bickering, especially between women. slang

    "Nancy and Sheila got into a catfight when Nancy's boyfriend cheated on her with Sheila."

Synonyms

All synonyms
hairpulling contesthairpulling contestscragfight

Example

More examples

"The caterwauling from the catfight in the back yard was awful; I couldn't get to sleep until it was over."

Etymology

From cat + fight. So named because, like cats, scratching is a common defensive tactic among women, as opposed to a fistfight between men.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.