«زَيِّ القُط»

The comparison casts a person as a frightened cat that has crept into a corner and keeps very still. Here the cat suggests fear and submission, not the cunning, independence, or grace cats carry in other sayings. It describes someone made small, timid, and submissive, staying quiet because they are afraid or have been put in their place.

In speech it often describes the outcome of a confrontation, where one party has so thoroughly humbled another that the loser stands meek and abased before them. It can also picture someone sitting hunched and withdrawn, visibly carrying shame or a sense of their own lowliness.

Use it after a verb or posture description, since the bare comparison takes its force from that frame, to portray someone cowed before an opponent or sitting shrunken and silent. It is demeaning and can insult the person described, mocking or pitying, never admiring.