Grimalkin

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Grimalkin was the name of the witches' cat in Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

A grimalkin is defined as an old or evil-looking she-cat. The term stems from gray (the color) plus malkin, an archaic word for cat. Scottish legend makes reference to the grimalkin as a faery cat which dwells in the highlands.

During the Middle ages, the name grimalkin - and cats in general - became associated with the devil and witchcraft. Women tried as witches in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were often accused of having a familiar, frequently a grimalkin.

The name has been re-used for various other things including a racing yacht which was a casualty in the 1979 Fastnet race storm. However the boat did not sink, has been refurbished and is still sailing.

The Godolphin Arabian, one of the stallions that helped found the line of Thoroughbred racing horses, was very close to a companion cat called Grimalkin. (Racehorses tend to be very high-strung and nervous animals, and often form a close bond with a companion animal; the tactic of trying to sabotage a race by abducting a racehorse's companion animal the night before the race is thought to have given rise to the term "getting someone's goat.")

See: malkin, greymalkin