It's Raining Cats & Dogs: Where We Get The Expression

It's raining cats and dogs: an odd phrase indeed. Have you ever wondered where it originated?  Though there is not a definitive origin, there are some possible derivations. 

A literal explanation for raining cats and dogs is that during heavy rains in 17th-century England some city streets became raging rivers of filth carrying many dead cats and dogs (oh no, poor kitties and doggies).

The first printed use of the phrase dates to the 17th century, when English playwright Richard Brome wrote in The City Witt (1652): "It shall rain dogs and polecats."

Other conjectures are that the hyperbole comes from a Greek saying, similar in sound, meaning "an unlikely occurence," and that the phrase derives from a rare French word, catadoupe ("a waterfall"), which sounds a little like cats and dogs. 

It could also be that the expression was inspired by the fact that cats and dogs were closely associated with the rain and wind in Northern mythology, dogs often being pictured as the attendants of Odin, the storm god, while cats were believed to cause storms. 

Similar colloquial expressions include it's raining pitchforks, darning needles, hammer handles, and chicken coops.