How to Play The Parson's Cat

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

The Parson's Cat is a spoken word game in which players work through the alphabet, each adding a new adjective to describe an imaginary cat belonging to a parson. Every adjective must begin with the agreed letter and must not have been used in that round. The game is fast, verbal, and requires no equipment whatsoever, making it genuinely portable.

Its appeal lies in the pressure it creates: the pace quickens, adjectives dry up, and even confident adults find themselves stumbling at Q or X. It works equally well as a five-minute filler and as the centrepiece of an evening indoors, and it scales naturally from young children to grandparents sharing the same sitting room.

A little history

The origins of The Parson's Cat are unclear. It appears in Victorian parlour game collections and is referenced in Scottish literary circles of the nineteenth century, with some sources noting that Robert Louis Stevenson played it as a child, though the evidence for specific attributions is thin. What is well documented is that it belongs to a broad family of alphabetical memory and wordplay games that were popular entertainment in British households long before broadcast media, traditionally played after dinner or during long evenings at home.

Setting up

1. Seat all players in a circle or in a clear turn order around a table.
2. Agree on whether play will go clockwise or anticlockwise and stick to it throughout.
3. Decide in advance on any house rules: whether proper nouns count, which difficult letters (Q, X, Z) are included or skipped, and how strictly hesitation will be judged.
4. Choose a starting player by any convenient method.

How to play

1. The starting player says 'The parson's cat is an [adjective] cat', filling the blank with any adjective beginning with the letter A.
2. Play passes to the next player in turn. They must also produce an adjective beginning with A that has not yet been used in this round.
3. Continue around the circle. Any player who hesitates for too long, cannot produce a valid adjective, or repeats a word already used in that round is eliminated and sits out for the rest of the round.
4. Once every active player has given a valid A adjective in their turn, the round moves to B. The first player in turn order then starts the B round with an adjective beginning with B.
5. Play continues letter by letter through the alphabet in this way. Eliminated players remain out for all subsequent letters.
6. If only one player remains active at any point, that player wins the game immediately.
7. If the group reaches the end of the agreed alphabet without a single player being eliminated, the survivors share the round as joint winners, or the group may choose to replay with a faster pace or stricter hesitation limit.
8. For a longer game, players may be given a set number of lives (typically three) rather than being eliminated on the first mistake.

Winning and scoring

The winner is the last player who has not been eliminated. There is no points tally in standard play. In the lives variant, a player is out once they have used all their lives, and the last player with at least one life remaining wins. In group settings where everyone survives a full alphabet, it is conventional to simply start a new game at a faster pace rather than declare a draw.

The fine points

The most common dispute is over hesitation. The standard ruling is that any pause long enough for another player to notice and call it counts as a hesitation. Many groups use a count of three seconds as the threshold, which is worth agreeing before play begins. Umming, false starts, or repeating the sentence stem while searching for a word all count as hesitation under strict play, though families with younger children often allow more latitude.

Disputed adjectives are another regular flashpoint. If a player challenges whether a word is genuinely an adjective and applicable as a description, the majority of remaining players rule on it immediately. Proper adjectives derived from place names (Venetian, Scottish) are commonly allowed but should be agreed in advance. Obscure or highly technical words should be accepted if the player can give a plausible definition on the spot. Words that have already been used in an earlier letter round are entirely fine in a new letter round; the no-repeat rule applies only within the current letter.

How to win more often

• Prepare two or three adjectives for each letter before your turn arrives, not just one. If your first choice is taken, you need an immediate backup.
• Front-load your obvious words early in the A and B rounds to warm up. Save genuinely unusual adjectives for the harder letters.
• For Q, X, and Z, learn a short personal list before playing: quivering, querulous, and quaint cover Q well; xenial and xeric exist for X; zany and zealous handle Z.
• Watch other players and remember what they say. In a long round you can catch a repeat if you are listening carefully, and calling it correctly keeps you safe.
• Keep your delivery steady rather than rushing. A confident, even pace is less likely to trigger a hesitation call than a burst of speed followed by a visible freeze.

Variations

Memory Chain

Rather than each player simply supplying one adjective for the current letter, each player must first recite all the adjectives given before theirs in that letter's round, in order, before adding their own. This increases the memory demand sharply and tends to eliminate players faster. It is the version most commonly encountered in older parlour game books.

Category Switch

Instead of adjectives alone, players may also name an action the parson's cat performs, using an alliterative verb beginning with the current letter: 'The parson's cat is an angry cat and it argues.' The added category gives younger players more options while keeping the game moving.

Lives Rules

Each player starts with three lives. A mistake costs one life rather than immediate elimination. This variant suits mixed-age groups because it keeps younger or less confident players involved for longer and reduces the dead time of sitting out a full alphabet. Call the life loss clearly and keep a visible tally.

Speed Round

A timer, phone or otherwise, is set for a fixed period, typically fifteen or twenty seconds, per player per letter. If the buzzer sounds before the player has spoken a valid adjective, they lose a life or are eliminated. This removes ambiguity about hesitation rulings entirely and raises the energy level of the game considerably.

The Parson's Cat: frequently asked questions