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Catty vs Hatty - What's the difference?

catty | hatty |

As adjectives the difference between catty and hatty

is that catty is with subtle hostility in an effort to hurt, annoy, or upset, particularly among women while hatty is of, relating to, or resembling, a hat.

As a noun catty

is a (unit of) weight used in China, generally standardized as half a kilogram.

catty

English

Alternative forms

* cattie

Etymology 1

; in sense “hostility”, see (m).

Adjective

(er)
  • (informal, of a person or remark) With subtle hostility in an effort to hurt, annoy or upset, particularly among women.
  • (informal) Resembling or characteristic of a cat.
    • a catty smell
    Synonyms
    * (spiteful) bitchy (derogatory), cattish, malicious, nasty, snide, spiteful
    Related terms
    * (l)
    See also
    *

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) kati, from (etyl) languages, Mandarin:

    Noun

    (head)
  • A (unit of) weight used in China, generally standardized as half a kilogram.
  • * 2009 , Huaiyin Li, Village China Under Socialism and Reform: A Micro-History, 1948-2008 , Stanford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8047-5974-8, page 94:
    • To limit team members' consumption, it issued food stamps to the villagers and allowed everyone to eat one catty of rice a day.
  • * 1699 , Captain William Dampier, A new voyage round the world, Volume 1 :
    • 16 Mess'', make a ''Tale'', which here is 20 ''s''. ''English'', 5 ''Tale'' make a ''Bancal'', a weight so called, and 20 ''Bancal'' make a ''Catty , another weight.
  • * 1847 , Robert Montgomery Martin, China; Political, Commercial, and Social , Volume 2, James Madden (publisher), page 124:
    • Transparent yellow pieces are the best; the price is from eight to fourteen dollars per catty , according to size and quality.
    See also
    * (Hong Kong units) chek , tsun , fan , picul , tael , mace , candareen , tsin , leung , kan , tam English terms with multiple etymologies

    hatty

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Of, relating to, or resembling, a hat.
  • * 1850 , London Charivari (volume 19, page 156)
    • Every one agrees that there ought to be a reform in Hats A proclamation could never accomplish a hatty reform ; but we are not prepared to say something might not be done by shrieval interference, which would be consistent with those municipal Institutions that all Englishmen cherish.
  • (of a person) Fond of hats.