[Shortened from CATAMOUNTAIN.]
† 1. = CATAMOUNTAIN; a pard or panther. Obs.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 5. With clea’s or tallons (like a Catamount).
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Cat-a-mount, a Mongrel, or wild Cat.
2. A common name in U.S. of the puma or cougar (Felis concolor), also called Panther, Painter, and Mountain (or American) Lion.
1794. S. Williams, Vermont, 86. The catamount seems to be the same animal which the ancients called Lynx.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, I. 109. A wild beast … I say! twarn’t a cattermount tho’, was it?
1855. O. W. Holmes, Poems, 193. The woods were full of Catamounts, And Indians red as deer.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Courage, Wks. (Bohn), III. 108. The hunter is not alarmed by bears, catamounts, or wolves.
1884. Echo, 24 Nov., 4/3. In Pennsylvania, bears and catamounts are so numerous … in Pike county as to be a perfect nuisance to the farmers.
