Etymologitastic: Caterpillar

So. I was recently called out for laziness with words. A good friend of mine writes an English language newsletter published for writers that do not use it as a first language. She has a splendid section devoted to etymology. I decided to be her inspiration: "Hey, what's the story with 'nick of time'?" "Hey, what's the origin of 'state of the art'?" "Yo, what's the story with 'checkers'?" In her splendid way, she informed me of Google. So.

Time for my own work on my own interests in this area. Still lazily, here's my first go. Completely from one entry from Google.

So:

Latin *catta pilosa means "hairy cat." "Catta" gives us modern English "cat" and "pilosus" is from "pilus" hair, giving us pile in carpets. That caterpillars should resemble cats in any way may be surprising, but note other names used to describe them - "pussmoth" and "woolly bear." (English Etymologies)