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Is it old-fashioned to say "It's raining cats and dogs"? If yes, what is the substitution idiom for expressing heavy rain?

Maryam
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    It still used today to indicate (extremely) heavy rain or rainfall. It is not considered old-fashioned. It is an idiomatic expression. – Alan Carmack Aug 22 '16 at 04:43
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    As a side note, when it is raining that hard be careful not to step in a poodle. – Keeta - reinstate Monica Aug 22 '16 at 15:06
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    I still use it - but it's not as bad as hailing taxis. – Glen_b Aug 23 '16 at 00:46
  • How about "it's raining frogs and fishes" –  Aug 23 '16 at 00:41
  • It's rainy AF. No one's heard this before? – Santa Aug 23 '16 at 08:07
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    Where & how did the phrase originate? Why cats & dogs? – Alex S Aug 23 '16 at 10:14
  • Depends on who you ask, but as a 35-year-old native English speaker from the US, I can tell you with certainty that it is considered outdated to the point of being amusing to many people. It's extremely likely this depends on where you're from, and being an idiom does not preclude a phrase from being perceived as old-fashioned. "It's pouring" is much more current. – kungphu Aug 23 '16 at 10:53
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    @AlexS There are many stories about its origin; e.g. that people kept their cats and dogs out in the yard and they remained outside at all times, except when the weather was so bad that they came seeking shelter inside. – Mr Lister Aug 23 '16 at 12:04
  • There is another saying. It goes as "It is raining in sheets." –  Aug 26 '16 at 18:03

4 Answers4

21

It's raining cats and dogs

is used to describe very heavy rain and is still in use these days.

here

Alternative phrasing might be

It's pouring
It's bucketing
It's a deluge
It's pissing down (BrE)
It's really coming down (can be used for any precipitation )


here

Glorfindel
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Peter
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    One more as I remember - it's *teeming* :) – Maulik V Aug 22 '16 at 06:01
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    I've personally (AmE) never heard "It's bucketing," but I have heard "It's raining buckets." – alex_d Aug 22 '16 at 07:41
  • It's chucking it down! It's tipping it down out there! – The Cat Aug 22 '16 at 09:01
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    I like "There certainly is plenty of weather today" – z0r Aug 22 '16 at 09:46
  • +1 for the effort in finding these images, oh, and also for the excellent answer. – Varun Nair Aug 22 '16 at 10:33
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    It's in use - but I've only heard it said in the last decade from my grandmother. The most common idiom I've heard is "it's [insert colloquialism for urination]ing it down" – SeanR Aug 22 '16 at 11:34
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    In Australia (and I believe UK too), we say "It's pissing down", or if extremely heavy "It is absolutely pissing down" – Bohemian Aug 22 '16 at 11:48
  • My personal favourite is 'coming down like stair-rods' but I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it in RL - maybe in period fiction. – peterG Aug 22 '16 at 13:45
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    One would assume the RP version would be the fog has cleared. – oerkelens Aug 22 '16 at 15:32
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    BTW, pissing down is considered a little coarse. You would use it in a business setting, but not when addressing a judge for example. – Bohemian Aug 22 '16 at 18:38
  • @alex_d I can attest “It's bucketing” from Western Canada. It seems to be an adaptation of the (also used) phrase “It's raining buckets”. – SevenSidedDie Aug 22 '16 at 21:09
  • If it's pissing it down isn't coarse enough, try it's shitting it down, which can be further emphasised with it's absolutely shitting it down or it's fucking shitting it down. Not for polite conversation. – Hugo Aug 23 '16 at 06:09
  • Where & how did the phrase originate? Why cats & dogs? – Alex S Aug 23 '16 at 10:13
  • @AlexS - No one knows. From etymonline.com: Phrase 'to rain cats and dogs' is attested from 1738 (variation 'rain dogs and polecats' is from 1650s), of unknown origin, despite intense speculation. – J.R. Aug 23 '16 at 10:31
  • Supposedly, in olden times animals would hide in the attic spaces of thatched houses, and when it rained heavily the water would seep through the roof making the attic space slippery which then would cause the cats or dogs to fall. This has always been my understanding of the idiom here – Peter Aug 23 '16 at 13:38
18

Perhaps nowadays the saying is less popular among young native speakers, it does sound a bit of a cliché. According to Google Ngram, the British English corpus shows its popularity has declined since its peak in the 1940s.

enter image description here

Whereas according to Google Ngrams, it seems that American English speakers are loving it, the chart shows a sharp increase in usage since the 1970s.

enter image description here

Ngram link

To add to the many colloquial sayings mentioned already by @Peter and @Jocie, the very common, but perhaps for some speakers offensive, phrase:

It's pissing down

and the innocuous-sounding

It's pelting down

Mari-Lou A
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It entirely depends on where you are in the world, right down to the city. I'm from Lincolnshire in England and I have never heard anyone say "it's raining cats and dogs" without them being silly or making a joke.

Locally we'd say "it's chucking it down"

M.A.R.
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Vitani
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    Does use of an idiom become less valid if it was intended to be humorous? – Gusdor Aug 22 '16 at 11:59
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    Or (possibly Yorkshire dialect rather than pure Lincolnshire) "It's siling [with rain]". (Pronounced with a long "i" vowel, as in "eye"). From the Norse "sila", to pour something through a strainer, apparently. – alephzero Aug 22 '16 at 12:37
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    +1 for the very local nature of these things - in NYC, "it's raining cats and dogs" is maybe a little old-fashioned, but that's all; "it's chucking it down" would not be understood at all. – stangdon Aug 22 '16 at 12:47
  • @Gusdor Perhaps "joke" isn't the right word, more taking the mick out of the mid-20th century. Normally (again, in my experience) it would be voiced in a particular way (perhaps an older, Yorkshire/farmer-like accent, it's hard to describe in written form). To answer OPs question, "Is it old-fashioned", for my locale? Absolutely. – Vitani Aug 22 '16 at 12:48
  • @Jocie i spend a significant amount of time outdoors in unpleasant weather and uttering "its cats and dogs out there" or "its blowing dogs off chains" or "its blowing crabs out the sand" is more common than you'd think. – Gusdor Aug 22 '16 at 12:51
  • @Gusdor I've been around a good part of the U.S., and live near Washington, D.C., and I've never heard those last two - but great imagery, I must say! Those have to be U.K. English expressions, if I had to guess. – vapcguy Aug 22 '16 at 19:49
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    @alephzero I grew up in West Yorkshire and my parents still live there. Never heard "siling" in my life. – David Richerby Aug 22 '16 at 22:01
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Yes, "cats and dogs" is still in use and almost all Americans will understand. There is also the airplane pilot's description of truly bad weather when driving a car: "It's IFR weather out there" (Instrument Flight Rules), meaning (jokingly) you can't see a dang thing through the windshield and you must use your car's oil pressure gauge to steer by.

Nathan Tuggy
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Kevin
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