copycat

Latest Cronut Copycat? Dunkin’ Donuts
The cronut, the pastry made up of layers of croissant dough deep fried and filled with vanilla cream that’s taken the pastry world by storm, may have some new competition.
Far from the cronut’s birthplace - Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City – a similar creation was introduced last weekend.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2013/08/latest-cronut-copycat-dunkin-donuts/

今回扱うのはcopycatという表現です。以前先生の記事に２回ほど登場していますのでそちらもご参照していただければと思います。cf. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20100904/1283570993　　http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20100617/1276778515
copycatは「｟くだけて・非難して｠（他人の行動・服装・考え方・仕事などを）まねする人」「模倣の」「をやたらにまねる」という意味です。（『ウィズダム英和辞典　第３版』三省堂）
日本語には、動物を使った「まねする」という表現に「猿まね」がありますが、英語ではなぜ“cat”なのでしょう。猫が母猫のまねをするからなのか、などと考えてみましたが、違ったようです。調べていくと、次のような記事に出会いました。
Cats were associated with all sorts of evil and mischief. In an early-13th-century monastic guidebook for female monks called Ancrene Riwle, for instance, the anonymous author warns ascetics against becoming "cats of hell." (The term "hell-cat," by the way, began to crop up around 1603, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.) More famously, Shakespeare used "cat" in a similarly negative sense in All's Well That End's Well; Count Bertram tells his right-hand man that Captain Dumain seems increasingly sleazy: "A pox upon him for me, he's more and more a Cat." Judging from this etymological history, a "copycat" isn't someone who copies, like a cat, but a jerk prone to imitation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/08/what_a_copycat.html
“hell-cat”（「意地悪女、あばずれ」「悪魔、魔女」）（ibid）などで使われるように、catは人間の蔑称にもなるのですね。（Jakie）