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Catnip's other common names are catmint, catswort, field balm. It is a member of the mint family.Genus: Nepeta < nepeta, Latin word for Italian catnip < Nepeta Etruscan. Nepeta was an ancient city in Etruria, modern Tuscany, that may have supplied herbs to Rome, or invented some use of the plant. Common Error of Folk Etymology Corrected The English word catnip does not arise from cats “nipping” at the plant (which they do with tireless gusto) but from a shortening of nepeta to nep and then to nip. Family: Labiatae, the mint family < labiatus Botanical Latin, lipped, with a prominent lip < labia Latin, the lips. In botany, the labium is the lower lip of a flower with two lips. In flowers of the mint family, this labium is highly developed and enlarged, while the Species Nepeta cataria takes its specific from the medieval herbalist’s name for this plant, herba catti or herba cattaria. Note that Linnaeus misspelled the specific, using only one t, but botany stubbornly insists, as always, on keeping such mistakes in its official nomenclature. In the days when Britons practised sadistic corporal punishment, catnip also meant a lash or forty with a whip called a cat-o’-nine-tails. All Alone with a Pheromone Cats go crazy about catnip because the leaves and the root contain a chemical closely related in structure to certain feline sexual pheromones, odorous organic chemicals that animals give off to stimulate behavioural responses from other members of their species, responses that include sexual arousal. Manufacturers of toys for cats often drench their products with catnip extract. A refreshing mint tea for humans is made from the young leaves. But fret not. The pheromones are species-specific. One can drink such tea safely, in the assurance that one will not be expelled from the neighbourhood for interfering in an untoward manner with family pets.
Here is another explanation from the net: “How Does Catnip Affect Cats? Note: Nepetalactone’s reputed hallucinogenic properties remain unproven. But catnip sure does something to felines.
Comparative Etymology of the Word Cat Our domestic feline, that mouse-munching quadruped the cat, has a name whose ultimate origin is disputed. The cat root is widespread among the Indo-European languages. Here is a modest chart, edited from a Wikipedia page, displaying some of the words for cat in several world languages. Below the chart is my choice of the best modern supposition about the origin of cat. Cat in many languages
The cat was first domesticated in northern Africa and it seems probable that, as the practice spread into the Middle East and eventually into Europe, the word accompanied the pet. The etymology in the current Merriam-Webster is worth quoting: “Etymology: Middle English cat, catte, from Old English catt, catte; akin to Old Frisian katte, Old High German kazza, Old Norse köttr cat; all from a prehistoric North Germanic-West Germanic word probably borrowed from Late Latin cattus, catta, perhaps of Hamitic origin…” Ancient Nubian or Berber Origin of the Word Cat Berber is a member of the Hamito-Semitic language family, a group of languages which arose in the Middle East and North Africa. Its member languages are divided into five groups: Semitic, Berber, Chadic and Cushitic. So Nubian, Egyptian of the hieroglyphs, Hebrew and Arabic are included. Hail, Bast! Meow-meow, Bast! The Egyptians may have found domestic cats first among the Nubians. This seems plausible because, among other zoological reasons, the
☥ The ankh or looped cross was the Egyptian hieroglyphic character that stood for the word ʿnḫ, meaning life. Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their breasts. It is also known as the Egyptian Cross or crux ansata, Latin ‘cross with a handle.’ See the illustration. Bye-bye, Bast. I Knew It Couldn't Last. Bast presided over the Egyptian home and domestic pets including cats. In Pharaonic Egypt an entire city located within the Nile delta was devoted to Bast. At her sanctuary in Bubastis (‘where Bast dwells’) a cemetery strictly for domestic felines has been discovered containing thousands of mummified cats. Garfield, beware!
Catnap not Catnip
© 2006 William Gordon Casselman
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upper lip of the corolla though present is rudimentary. The mint family is large, with 224 genera and more than 5,600 species in the tropics and temperate zones.
The linguistic guess most cogent to me is this one: the ancient Egyptians borrowed the word from either Nubian kad
s (cat) or Berber kaddîska (cat). The Ancient Egyptian word for cat was not related. Like the Chinese, the Egyptians named the cat after its sound. The common hieroglyphic word for cat is amait or mait. The suffixal t is the standard Hamito-Semitic marker for grammatical femininity, a marker still used in Modern Hebrew and Standard Arabic. The root -mai is the Egyptian version of our meow-meow. The Chinese word for cat is similarly formed; it is mao. 
species felis cattus arose in Africa. Egyptians were fond of furry felis domestica, another species name. They made the cat one of their gods. The Egyptian cat goddess was Bast. Note again the terminal letter t denoting feminine grammatical gender. Bast was depicted as a slender, upright, aristocratic woman with the head of a cat, often holding the sacred rattle known as the sistrum in one hand and the Egyptian symbol of life, the ankh, in the other hand.
