cat flea
noun · n
Simple meaning
Flea that breeds chiefly on cats and dogs and rats.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
katfleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkætfˈli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Flea that breeds chiefly on cats and dogs and rats
n
The cat flea (scientific name Ctenocephalides felis) is an extremely common parasitic insect whose principal host is the domestic cat, although a high proportion of the fleas found on dogs also belong to this species.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Flea that breeds chiefly on cats and dogs and rats
Used this way, cat flea is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.