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Raining cats and dogs


In the filthy streets of 17th/18th century England, heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals and other debris. The animals didn't fall from the sky, but the sight of dead cats and dogs floating by in storms could well have caused the coining of this colourful phrase. Read more about this theory here as well as other theories that have been dismissed.

The figurative use of the phrase is that it is raining heavily. 






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