【趣味短语来源】rain dogs and cats

Rain cats and dogs

【英文解释】rain very heavily

【中文解释】倾盆大雨

【短语来源】Of many explanations the most popular is that cats and dogs used to drown as a result of heavy rainfall on medieval towns that had no street drainage. Some have said that superstitious folk may have assumed that the dead animals had fallen from the sky.

Apart from the fact that medieval superstition is normally not entirely witless, and that cats - if not dogs - are perfectly capable of looking after themselves in a flood, the first recorded appearance of the expression in a play of 1653 is 'It shall rain ... dogs and polecats'. The latter are hardly town animals.

...A better explanation, or at least a clue, is to be found in a quotation from Chaloner's translation of Erasmus' In Praise of Folly (1549): 'Rather should we let all the world go to wreck both with dog and cat (as they say)'. This indicates that there existed a popular expression 'with dog and cat', that it was used of a disaster, and that it meant 'completely and utterly', down to the last dog and cat (as when Noah took refuge from the disaster in the ark?). A downpour reminiscent of the Flood might thus have become known as a rain 'with dog and cat', like the end of the world.

众多解释中，最为人所知的是，中世纪城镇因为没有排水口，于是暴雨时街道被淹没，许多猫猫狗狗因此被淹死。迷信的人们就认为，这些猫狗的尸体是从天上掉下来的。

这个说法第一次出现在It shall rain ... dogs and polecats这个剧里，其实不靠谱，猫在洪水里明明是可以存活的嘛。

另外一个说法能说得通，引用自Chaloner's translation of Erasmus' In Praise of Folly (1549)，原文是这么说的：Rather should we let all the world go to wreck both with dog and cat (as they say)。刚好有这么个短语，with dog and cat，用来形容灾难，意为completely and utterly。于是倾盆大雨就容易让人联想到a rain 'with dog and cat'，好像世界末日一样。

【有例有句】We'll have to cancel the cricket match, it's raining cats and dogs. 雨下得太大了, 我们将只得取消板球比赛了。