The answer isn't as simple as "they want food" or "they're being dramatic." The sound people commonly call a yowl can actually mean very different things depending on the situation, and even cat behavior experts don't always agree on exactly what qualifies as a yowl.
That distinction matters, because context is often the biggest clue to what a cat is trying to communicate.
In other words, a true yowl is less like casual conversation and more like an emotional alarm bell.
The same vocalization shows up in the African wildcat (Felis lybica), the domestic cat's closest living relative that has been around far longer than our living room tigers — meaning cats were yowling at rivals long before they ever curled up on a human's couch, he told Live Science in an email.
A yowling cat squaring off with a neighborhood rival, in other words, is running a very old evolutionary script.
Cats may yowl in altercations with other cats. (Image credit: Turnip Towers via Alamy)Fear, conflict and distress
"If someone approaches a cat that's yowling, I would think that cat is saying, 'Please don't come any closer,'" said Katherine Anderson, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist at the Cornell Duffield Institute for Animal Behavior at Cornell University.
While humans often interpret these cries as a cat "screaming," de Mouzon said they're best understood as expressions of intense emotional distress. Sometimes the vocalization is directed at another individual, while other times it's simply an outward expression of the cat's emotional state — not necessarily a conscious plea for help.
Sign up for our newsletter(Image credit: Marilyn Perkins / Future)Not all loud vocalizations are classic yowls, however. Cats have an impressive repertoire of sounds, and many of the noises owners hear every day are part of a unique form of communication that developed alongside humans.
Schwartz noted that African wildcats also meow, but in a harsher, more yowl-like way than domestic cats do, and typically during conflict with other cats. One hypothesis for why the domestic cat's meow softened over generations is that it happened to share acoustic similarities with a human infant's cry, making nearby humans instinctively more responsive to it.
Anderson agrees that cats have become remarkably skilled at shaping human behavior. "I think they learn our behavior faster than we learn theirs," she said. "They can train us much easier than we can train them."
Why "yowl" is such a slippery word
Part of the confusion around yowling may come down to how humans classify sounds in the first place. In a 2025 study published in the journal Animal Behaviour, Schwartz's lab had participants listen to audio clips of cat vocalizations pulled from online sources and sort them into categories like meows, chirps and yowls.
Schwartz suspects that's because people aren't classifying yowls by acoustic features at all — they're classifying them by the emotion they perceive. If a sound comes across as distressed or upset, listeners are likely to call it a yowl, regardless of its pitch or duration. It's similar to how a person might describe someone as having "yelled" versus "shouted" based on the emotional tone they picked up on.
Cats may learn that vocalizing produces results, like getting human attention or food. (Image credit: Andrzej Rostek via Alamy)
Although vocalization is often perfectly normal, a sudden increase in loud crying, especially in an older cat, can sometimes point to an underlying medical condition.
Age is one of the first things Anderson considers when owners report excessive yowling. Cats may also vocalize because they're anxious, experiencing separation-related distress or in pain.
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They're not trying to spite you
"I don't think I've ever had a case where I'm like, 'Yep, that was spite,'" she said.
Cats may not communicate the way humans do, but they're almost always communicating something. The challenge isn't getting them to speak, it's learning how to interpret what they're already saying.
How much of a cat fan are you? Find out by taking our cat quiz!
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