by Ria
(Ockendon, Essex, England)

This is my cat Pebble.

This page also answers the question:

Why are cats called moggies?

Moggy or moggie is an old British affectionate term for a domestic cat, but is also used as alternative name for a mongrel or mixed-breed cat whose ancestry and pedigree are unknown or only partially known. Because of this mixed ancestry and free-breeding, a moggy can either be very healthy, or, if from an inbred feral colony, genetically unsound and sickly.

However, as feral colonies are often left without any form of human intervention and veterinary attention, the most sickly generally do not live past kittenhood.

Also in Lancashire and Cumbria UK the word Moggy used to mean a mouse and the cat was called a Moggy catcher. Eventually the ‘catcher’ was dropped and so both cat and mouse were called Moggies.

It was thought to be derived from the classic M markings on a tabbies head! (Most cats have tabby markings as kittens). Because people don’t tend to be as careful of the breeding of cats the vast majority are moggies!

Olive Oyl moggie show cat with standard tail. Photo copyright Helmi Flick

Hi Ria: Thanks for your submission. I changed the title to see if Google search finds it better. Michael

Further Information

I would also like to add some more on this subject. The term “moggy” began as a “local dialect variant” of the name Maggie which means a dishevelled old woman. In some places it was the name of a scarecrow. At its core it means something which is scruffy and untidy. At the start of the 20th century its use had spread to include cats.

It appears to have begun in London where there were lots of scruffy community cats. Their poor condition was comparable to a dishevelled old woman. In between the world wars in Britain the word moggy was abbreviated to “mog”. In the 1920s and 1930s schoolboy slang referred to dogs and cats as “tikes and mogs”. The shortened version fizzled out after World War II while “moggie” returned to popularity to describe a random bred (non-purebred) cat. – source: Cat World by Desmond Morris.