Etymology

Catskill Mountains

Today it means: An upland area in the north of the state of New York, mainly in Greene County and Ulster County. Full definition →

Dutch kat
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Dutch · derived fromkat“cat”
  2. English todayCatskill Mountains

From Dutch kat (“cat”) + kille (“river bed”). It is not exactly known why the name refers to cats, but it could possibly reference mountain lions in the area (catamounts).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.