Short answer: most languages have their own idiom for very heavy rain, and almost none of them use cats and dogs. French rains ropes, halberds or nails. Welsh rains old ladies and sticks. Dutch rains pipe stems, Greek rains chair legs, Czech rains wheelbarrows, and Norwegian rains she-trolls. The most common pattern, though, is plainer: rain "as if poured from a bucket," found in Russian, Polish, Icelandic, Ukrainian and others. Every equivalent below comes from Wikipedia's table on the idiom or from Wiktionary, and we note where the two disagree.
First, the English phrase: origin unknown
Before comparing images, it helps to know that English has no settled explanation for its own. Wiktionary's entry for "rain cats and dogs", which we read on October 2, 2026, defines it as "to rain very heavily" and gives its etymology as "Unknown."
What the references can show is early use. Wikipedia's article on the phrase, also read on October 2, 2026, quotes Richard Brome's The City Witt (1652): "It shall rain dogs and polecats." It also quotes Jonathan Swift's 1710 poem "Description of a City Shower," in which "Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood," a picture of debris washed through the streets, not animals falling from the sky. Neither text explains the idiom. Our page on why nobody has settled the raining cats and dogs origin goes through the popular theories and why none of them holds.
So when other languages use ropes or trolls, they are not "translating" a known English picture. Each language is doing the same odd thing: reaching for something absurd or dramatic to describe rain too heavy for ordinary words.
Register and region of the English phrase: casual, understood in both the US and the UK. Wiktionary labels it idiomatic.
Raining cats and dogs in other languages: the sourced table
In the source column, "Wikipedia" means the table in Wikipedia's "Raining cats and dogs" article; "Wiktionary" means the translation list on Wiktionary's "rain cats and dogs" entry or the phrase's own Wiktionary entry. Literal glosses follow those pages.
| Language | Phrase | Literal meaning | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | il pleut des cordes | It's raining ropes | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| French | il pleut des hallebardes | It's raining halberds | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| French | il pleut à boire debout | Raining enough to drink standing up | Wikipedia |
| German | es regnet Bindfäden | It's raining strings | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| German | es schüttet wie aus Eimern | Pouring as if from buckets | Wikipedia |
| Dutch | het regent pijpenstelen | Raining pipe stems (or stair rods) | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| Welsh | mae hi'n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn | Raining old ladies and sticks | Wikipedia |
| Greek | vréchei kareklopódara | Raining chair legs | Wikipedia |
| Czech | padajà trakaře | Wheelbarrows are falling | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| Danish | det regner skomagerdrenge | Raining shoemakers' apprentices | Wikipedia |
| Norwegian | det regner trollkjerringer | Raining she-trolls | Wikipedia |
| Swedish | det regnar småspik | Raining small nails | Wikipedia |
| Afrikaans | dit reën ou vrouens met knopkieries | Raining old women with knobsticks | Wikipedia |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | está chovendo canivetes | Raining pocketknives | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | chovem cobras e lagartos | Raining snakes and lizards | Wikipedia |
| Spanish | llover a cántaros | To rain jugs | Wiktionary |
| Italian | piove a catinelle | Raining basins | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| Catalan | ploure a bots i barrals | Raining boats and barrels | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| Croatian | padaju sjekire | Axes are falling | Wikipedia |
| Russian | льет как из ведра | Pouring as if from a bucket | Wikipedia, Wiktionary |
| Japanese | doshaburi | Earth and sand coming down | Wikipedia |
Weapons, tools and hardware
The images that travel furthest on social media are the hard objects. French rains halberds, the long-handled medieval polearm, as Wiktionary's entry for pleuvoir des hallebardes explains. Wikipedia's table also lists French nails and Swedish "small nails," Croatian and Serbian axes, Czech wheelbarrows, Greek chair legs and Brazilian Portuguese pocketknives.
The references we checked do not give etymologies for these. One plausible reading, offered here as our observation only, is that heavy rain looks and sounds like hard things striking the ground. That is a guess about why the pictures appeal, not a sourced origin for any one of them.
People, animals and creatures
The second group is closer to the English idea of something living falling from the sky.
- Welsh rains hen wragedd a ffyn, old ladies and sticks, per Wikipedia.
- Afrikaans rains old women (or aunts) with knopkieries, which Wikipedia glosses as knobsticks.
- Norwegian rains trollkjerringer, she-trolls, in Wikipedia's table.
- Danish rains skomagerdrenge, shoemakers' apprentices.
- Swedish rains smådjävlar, little devils, also per Wikipedia.
- Romanian rains frogs, and Brazilian Portuguese rains snakes and lizards.
- French has a farmyard version too: il pleut comme vache qui pisse, raining like a cow relieving itself. It is the crudest entry here, so treat it as casual speech only.
English is not unusual in putting creatures in the rain. It is unusual only in choosing pets.
Ropes, strings and pipe stems
A third group describes what heavy rain actually looks like: long straight lines. French il pleut des cordes is "it's raining ropes," Wiktionary confirms. German es regnet Bindfäden rains strings or twine. Dutch het regent pijpenstelen rains pipe stems, which Wikipedia's table also renders as stair rods.
These are the least strange of the vivid idioms. Anyone who has watched a downpour against a dark background has seen rain fall in what look like strings.
The quiet majority: buckets, basins and jugs
The most common pattern in both references is not vivid at all. It compares rain to water being poured from a container.
Wikipedia's table gives a bucket image for Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Icelandic, Serbian, Romanian, Finnish and German, a vat for Hungarian, a basin for Italian and a cup for Turkish. Wiktionary adds Spanish and Portuguese "jugs" (llover a cántaros, chover a cântaros). French has il pleut à seaux, raining buckets.
This is the useful fact for anyone actually trying to say it in another language. Lists of "funny rain idioms" pick the halberds and the trolls, because they are funny. The container version is the plain one. If you only learn one equivalent in a language, the container idiom is a sensible place to start; the vivid one may be regional, old-fashioned or rude, and a translation table does not tell you which.
Where the references disagree
The two references overlap but do not match, and the differences are worth knowing.
| Language | Wikipedia's table | Wiktionary's translation list |
|---|---|---|
| Norwegian | det regner trollkjerringer (she-trolls) | regne sinte kjerringer, glossed "rain mad hags," plus the plain verb høljeregne |
| Swedish | det regnar smådjävlar (little devils), det regnar småspik (small nails), skyfall | stå som spön i backen |
Neither list claims to be complete, and neither says how common each phrase is in everyday speech. A translation table records that a phrase exists; it is not a usage survey. When a native speaker tells you their grandmother said it but nobody under forty does, that is information no table here captures. We have kept to what the references state and have not ranked the idioms by popularity.
The same caution applies to origins. Neither reference gives a sourced etymology for most of these phrases, and Wiktionary gives "Unknown" for the English one. As with the whole nine yards, whose origin nobody knows, "origin unknown" is a complete and honest answer. For how researchers actually establish a phrase's history, see our explainer on how a phrase origin is traced.
If you want to use one
A few practical points for learners and travelers:
- Start with the container idiom. "Like from a bucket" phrasing appears across many languages and is the least likely to sound odd.
- Check register before using the vivid one. Wiktionary marks pleuvoir des cordes as informal. The French cow version is crude.
- Expect regional variation. Wikipedia lists some forms specifically as Brazilian Portuguese, a reminder that one language can have several regional favorites.
- Do not translate the English word for word. A French version with cats and dogs does not appear in either reference's French list. A listener will hear a translation, which is the opposite of sounding fluent.
Frequently asked questions
How do you say "raining cats and dogs" in French?
Equivalents listed by Wikipedia and Wiktionary include il pleut des cordes (it's raining ropes), il pleut des hallebardes (halberds) and il pleut à seaux (buckets). Wiktionary labels pleuvoir des cordes as informal.
How do you say "raining cats and dogs" in Spanish?
Wiktionary lists llover a cántaros, literally "to rain jugs," first, along with llover a mares and caer chuzos de punta, among others.
Do any other languages use cats and dogs?
None of the entries we checked in Wikipedia's table or Wiktionary's translation list uses cats and dogs. Other languages put creatures in the rain, such as Welsh old ladies, Norwegian she-trolls and Romanian frogs, but the pet version appears to be English.
What is the most common way other languages describe heavy rain?
In both references, the most frequent pattern compares rain to water poured from a bucket, basin or jug. Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Icelandic and several other languages use a bucket image.
Where does "raining cats and dogs" come from?
Nobody knows. Wiktionary gives the etymology as "Unknown." Wikipedia quotes Richard Brome's 1652 "It shall rain dogs and polecats" as an early related use.
