A bobcat is a wild cat from North America, bigger than a house cat, with spotted fur and tufted ears. Dictionaries sometimes say it has no tail, but that is tidier than the truth: it has a tail, just a short, stubby one, as if it had been cut. That short tail is the point of the name. Bobcats hunt rabbits, birds and mice, mostly at dusk and at night, and they are shy of people. They are not huge; a mountain lion is much larger. The word is ordinary American English for the animal. People also use Bobcat, often with a capital letter, for a small digging machine — a brand name taken from this cat.