飼い猫

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: 飼い猫(かいねこ) combines 飼い from 飼う(かう), to keep an animal, with 猫(ねこ).
• Basic usage: It refers to a cat kept by someone; that relationship matters more than whether the cat is indoors.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• An inference from appearance
  • In this context, らしい in 飼い猫らしい猫 means the cat appears to be someone's pet. The sentence mentions a collar but does not establish who owns the cat.
• 飼う and 買う
  • 飼う means keeping an animal; the identically pronounced 買う means buying. 飼い猫 describes a cat being kept, not how it was acquired.