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A cat (Felis catus) is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from the wild members of the family. A cat can either be a house cat, a farm cat or a feral cat; the latter ranges freely and avoids human contact. Domestic cats are valued by humans for companionship and their ability to hunt rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by various cat registries.

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The cat is similar in anatomy to the other felid species: it has a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey. Its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. Cat communication includes vocalizations like meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting as well as cat-specific body language. A predator that is most active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular), the cat is a solitary hunter but a social species. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small mammals. It secretes and perceives pheromones.

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The origin of the English word cat, Old English catt, is thought to be the Late Latin word cattus, which was first used at the beginning of the 6th century. It was suggested that the word 'cattus' is derived from an Egyptian precursor of Coptic ϣⲁⲩ šau, "tomcat", or its feminine form suffixed with -t. The Late Latin word may be derived from another Afro-Asiatic or Nilo-Saharan language. The Nubian word kaddîska "wildcat" and Nobiin kadīs are possible sources or cognates. The Nubian word may be a loan from Arabic قَطّ‎ qaṭṭ ~ قِطّ qiṭṭ. It is "equally likely that the forms might derive from an ancient Germanic word, imported into Latin and thence to Greek and to Syriac and Arabic".

The scientific name Felis catus was proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1759 for a domestic cat.Felis catus domesticus was proposed by Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777. Felis daemon proposed by Konstantin Alekseevich Satunin in 1904 was a black cat from the Transcaucasus, later identified as a domestic cat.

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled that the domestic cat is a distinct species, namely Felis catus. In 2007, it was considered a subspecies, F. silvestris catus, of the European wildcat (F. silvestris) following results of phylogenetic research. In 2017, the IUCN Cat Classification Taskforce followed the recommendation of the ICZN in regarding the domestic cat as a distinct species, Felis catus.

The domestic cat is a member of the Felidae, a family that had a common ancestor about 10–15 million years ago. The genus Felis diverged from other Felidae around 6–7 million years ago. Results of phylogenetic research confirm that the wild Felis species evolved through sympatric or parapatric speciation, whereas the domestic cat evolved through artificial selection (testing). The domesticated cat and its closest wild ancestor are diploid and both possess 38 chromosomesand roughly 20,000 genes.The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) was tamed independently in China around 5500 BC. This line of partially domesticated cats leaves no trace in the domestic cat populations of today.

The domestic cat has a smaller skull and shorter bones than the European wildcat. It averages about 46 cm (18 in) in head-to-body length and 23–25 cm (9–10 in) in height, with about 30 cm (12 in) long tails. Males are larger than females. Adult domestic cats typically weigh between 4 and 5 kg (9 and 11 lb).

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Cats have excellent night vision and can see at only one-sixth the light level required for human vision. This is partly the result of cat eyes having a tapetum lucidum, which reflects any light that passes through the retina back into the eye, thereby increasing the eye's sensitivity to dim light. Large pupils are an adaptation to dim light. The domestic cat has slit pupils, which allow it to focus bright light without chromatic aberration. At low light, a cat's pupils expand to cover most of the exposed surface of its eyes. However, the domestic cat has rather poor color vision and only two types of cone cells, optimized for sensitivity to blue and yellowish green; its ability to distinguish between red and green is limited. A response to middle wavelengths from a system other than the rod cells might be due to a third type of cone. However, this appears to be an adaptation to low light levels rather than representing true trichromatic vision.

The average lifespan of pet cats has risen in recent decades. In the early 1980s, it was about seven years, rising to 9.4 years in 1995  and 15.1 years in 2018. Some cats have been reported as surviving into their 30s with the oldest known cat, Creme Puff, dying at a verified age of 38.

Neutering increases life expectancy: one study found castrated male cats live twice as long as intact males, while spayed female cats live 62% longer than intact females. 35  Having a cat neutered confers health benefits, because castrated males cannot develop testicular cancer, spayed females cannot develop uterine or ovarian cancer, and both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer.

The domestic cat is a cosmopolitan species and occurs across much of the world. It is adaptable and now present on all continents except Antarctica, and on 118 of the 131 main groups of islands, even on the isolated Kerguelen Islands. Due to its ability to thrive in almost any terrestrial habitat, it is among the world's most invasive species. As it is little altered from the wildcat, it can readily interbreed with the wildcat. This hybridization poses a danger to the genetic distinctiveness of some wildcat populations, particularly in Scotland and Hungary and possibly also the Iberian Peninsula. It lives on small islands with no human inhabitants. Feral cats can live in forests, grasslands, tundra, coastal areas, agricultural land, scrublands, urban areas, and wetlands.

Cats are common pets throughout the world, and their worldwide population as of 2007 exceeded 500 million. Cats have been used for millennia to control rodents, notably around grain stores and aboard ships, and both uses extend to the present day.