Is your cat solid, color point, or tabby? Perhaps your kitty has feathers or a blaze. They might even wear bracelets or mittens.
Whether you are an ailurophile (cat loving person), a breeder, or are interested in showing your cat, these terms will help you better understand words that describe your cat’s appearance. You might also enjoy, “Cat Colors.”
A
Agouti – When a cat’s hair follicles have contrasting bands of colors
AOC – “Any Other Color” – Non-recognized colors or patterns in a cat breed
AOV – “Any Other Variety” – Purebred cats that aren’t eligible for show because of their color or other characteristic
Awn hairs – The part of the cat’s undercoat that is longer than the down hairs and shorter than the guard hairs
Awry – Crooked jaw
B
Barring – Tabby markings
Base coat – The primary coat
Bi-color – A cat that is mostly white with spots of another color
Blaze – Stripe up the center of a cat’s forehead
Bracelets – Stripes around the legs of a tabby
Break – Indention of the bridge of the nose
Brindling – Different colors in a cat’s coat
Britches – Long hair on the back of the cat’s upper legs
Brush tail – A long, bushy tail
Bulls eye – A solid, circular spot of darker coloring surrounded by a ring of darker coloring, found on tabbies
Butterfly – A mark found on the shoulders of classic tabbies that resembles a butterfly
C
Classic tabby – Tabby with swirls and blotches of darker color over a lighter base coat
Cobby – Short, broad, heavy boned, and short legged
Color point – A pattern where the darker markings are on the extremities of the cat, including the face, ears, tail, and legs
D
Dilute – A pale version of the darker color
Doming – The round part of the head between the ears
Down hairs – The shortest hairs on a cat
E
Ear furnishings – Tufts of hair in and around the ears
G
Ghost markings – Very faint tabby markings on any cat that disappear as they mature
Gloves – Solid color markings, normally white, on the front feet
Ground color – The color of the hair closest to the body
Guard hairs – The long, outer hairs of a cat’s coat
L
Lynx tufts – Furnishings on the tips of the cat’s ears
M
Mackerel – Tabby pattern with vertical stripes like a fishbone
Mask – Darker color on the cat’s face
Mitted – White feet
Modified wedge – A cat’s face is triangular, but not as extreme as a wedge
O
Odd-eyed – Each eye is a different color
Overshot jaw – When the cat’s lower jaw sticks out abnormally
P
Patched Tabby – Any tabby pattern with patches of red
Parti-color – A color division containing tortoiseshells and bi-colors
R
Rangy – Long body
Rex – A soft, curly undercoat with no guard hairs
Roman nose – A nose that has an arch and low set nostrils
Ruff – Collar of fringe around the neck
S
Self – A cat fur that is one solid color from base to tip
Shaded – Fur is white at the base with darker color from half way down the shaft to the tip
Single coat – When the cat has one coat with no undercoat
Smoke – When the cat’s coat is white at the base with darker fur covering most of the hair shaft
Solid – Fur with one single color
Spotting – White areas in the coat
Stop – Indentation in the nose, normally between the eyes
T
Tabby – A coat that is either stripes, classic, mackerel, blotched, spotted, ticked, or agouti
Ticking – Darker hair on the tips of the hair shaft
Tufts – Hair around the cat’s ears or sticking out between their toes
The copyright of the article Feline Characteristics in Cats is owned by Darlene Cheek. Permission to republish Feline Characteristics in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
