A meow or miaow is a cat vocalization. Meows may have a large range of sounds. Adult cats rarely meow to each other. An adult cat meowing at a human is generally considered a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens: a call for attention.
Background and biological details
Meowing fundamentally evolves as a learned behavior. Feral cats meow much less often than cats with owners. Over time, cats may learn to meow in response to human vocalizations, so that a back and forth resembling a conversation in all but content may take place. ==Etymology==
Etymology
In American English, the spelling meow was first used in 1842. Before that, the word could be spelled miaow, miau, or meaw, from French's miau. Of any variant, the earliest attestation of a cat's cry in Early Modern English is from the 1630s. ==See also==