see which way the cat jumps
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
wait to see how a situation develops before acting
Literally: observe the direction a cat moves
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
I could have arrested the manager of the field, but I thought it might be better to wait to see which way the cat jumped.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “see which way the cat jumps” mean?
wait to see how a situation develops before acting Literally: observe the direction a cat moves
Is “see which way the cat jumps” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.